I would have to say I’m a mixture of old fashioned and whiz kid when it comes to technology. By that I mean that I’m happy to embrace technology and allow it to help me from day to day, but at the same time I see no reason why I should let it rule my life. Like the fact that I bought a new mp3 player today. Looking at the options in Argos I have to say that being skint doesn’t help you when you just want something plain and simple nowadays. There was no ‘normal’ mp3 players anymore, the cheapest one was about £30 (which incidentally was the one that broke, causing me to have to buy a new one). They all had the ability to be able to play videos and have this, that and the other run on it, but whatever happened to just something to play your music off? It’s the same with mobile phones. I really don’t see why people want the iPhone so much. You want something that will allow you to read shares, emails, go on the internet, play games etc. Well guess what it was already invented, it’s called a PDA. And most of the time they are only used by businessman, which (if you think about the original apps on) an iPhone is what would be suited for. Technology seems to be integrating into each other, so now when people walk down the road they have about 3 pieces of technology to show pictures, play games and go on the internet with. At what point when you’re walking down the road do you really use them? But anyway this isn’t meant to be about mobile phones, mp3 players etc, this is meant to be about something much more time-consuming. The Internet.

This is where I’m resistant to modern culture. Yes I have Facebook. Yes I go on Youtube. Yes I go on Amazon (but have only recently discovered the joy that is mp3 downloading) and all the rest of the usual sites. But then there’s the really personal things like Twitter that I refuse point blank to join ( I could go on forever about Twitter, but it is really a site of either stalking famous people or telling the whole world that you’ve just gone for a bath and now you’re going to cook dinner... I don’t know what’s worse), but I have started a similarly intrusive personal thing. I’ve started a blog.

Now this really isn’t a new thing, they’ve been around for a fair few years now, but like I said, I’m resistant. To be honest, I still am a bit curious as to why I believe that the world wants to, or needs to hear regular updates of my mundane life, but I think it’s more of a way to express my thoughts throughout the day. But it got me thinking, why does everybody’s life now revolve around letting other people have such an intimate form of contact with you? Wherever people go now (and I am as guilty as the rest of them for most of these things), they HAVE to take their mobile, they HAVE to update their Facebook/ Twitter status, they HAVE to take pictures on their phones if they’re out for the night. What I’m getting at is people feel the need to express every little detail of their lives with the world, there is no such thing as privacy anymore. And yet, with all of this technology to aid contact with other, we see less than each other person than any other time, and when we do we check our phones for texts every so often, ‘just to make sure’. To make sure of what? Someone hasn’t sent you something that could wait until you got home to reply to?

Call me old-fashioned and still living in the 20^th, not 21^st century, but I still value being at home and not knowing where the hell my mobile is, having my internet not on, and just relaxing with actual people, instead of virtual friends or watching the tv.

artistspaintbynumbers.blog.co.uk – I’ve officially partly sold my soul to something worse than the devil... the internet.