#OMG social networking is so over for me

EARLIER this year I decided to deep dive in to the social networking community.

After all, it seemed like the world was now revolving around new communication tools that enhanced people’s lives. So, I signed up for Twitter, opened an account with Facebook and pulled the trigger on LinkedIn too.

Now I could follow very important people opining on oh so important issues. My Facebook wall could be festooned with photos of me and my dog, me out with my friends and me, me and me again.

Finally, I could do the serious stuff by posting my CV and wax on about my brilliant career and hook up with other marvellous individuals who all seemed to want to connect with me.

Soon my in-box was filled with notices about “friends” who wanted to get in touch, others who were apparently desperate to “connect” and then there were those who just wanted to waffle. It was time to join in. #had a swim. It was sooo OMG brill#, #Scarlett Johannson, please call# etc.

Three facts were quickly evident; (1) social networking has the ability to absorb a huge amount of time which brings with it a large opportunity cost; (2) the entire proposition encourages and celebrates megalomania, and; (3) the happy clappy “community” pitch by these sites barely conceals the hard commercial objectives that underpin them all.

We now live in a world where the machines that are supposed to assist our lives are actually interfering with them. In the process it turns civility into ignorance.

How often have you seen people on their mobile phones while paying assistants at shop counters?

Have you experienced the idiot who takes calls while sitting in a restaurant?

How much time are people at work spending on tweets, posting that photo of themselves from last night’s party or checking out the latest job offers?

These actions are the products of a phenomenon that prioritises ego over civil society. Unfettered access to mobile networks and the internet, augmented by systems that discourage self discipline, empower people to behave like trolls.

Editing was a skill invented and cherished in publications as a means of delivering content that had integrity and was factually correct.

It also helped the writer avoid making a fool of him or herself. The elimination of that function, which is celebrated by many of those swarming across the social networking sphere, has created a generation of self centred neophytes.

Of course the pushback here is that I’m a form of Luddite who is incapable of understanding the incredible benefits that stem from social networking.

After all it allows important people to connect with us ordinary five-eights.

I checked that out by following Rory McIlroy on Twitter. He has the swing of a genius but writes like a 10-year old so I scrubbed that one. Stephen Fry is a genius too but his tweets do not add much to humanity’s knowledge either so the “delete” button was hit there too.

No, I’m afraid too many of us have been conned by sophisticated and sustained marketing of the notion that a new on-screen world offers something better. By spending a nano-second on one of these egomaniacal systems you waste time that could be used to sit on the bank of a river or take the poor dog out and throw his ball.

Or you could decide to engage in real life conversation with someone who actually is a friend or maybe do some real “community” work like helping out a charity or two.

Anyway, before I sign off one really important and seismic tweet from me and I #Penelope Cruz, my crib, this weekend, OK?#

*Joe Gill is head of research with Bloxham Stockbrokers