Social And Anti Social

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In getting increasingly dependent on social networking on sites including Twitter and Facebook, the less of a social animal I seem to be in the real non-virtual World. While entertaining my 3,000 plus Facebook friends I am acutely aware that I am not out with my immediate circle of actual friends. Obviously I can’t often afford to be out drinking, dining, visiting cinemas and travelling to houses across the city of Manchester or beyond. Going online is a compensation for not being able to afford a real life. I’m writing now in time I would actually be working in warehouses or call centres if I had gainful employment. The ‘Tron’ world I inhabit in cyberspace is rich in virtual-pals and I appreciate you all, but if the chance to be out and about with my non-virtual friends arose I would desert you in a heartbeat. My online friends are surrogate substitute friends. Real world friends are my primary friends and my main social priority. We seem to have virtual alternatives to everything in the real World. Sims and avatars let people move round in a virtual reality right out of William Gibson’s cyberpunk novels like Neuromancer. There is virtual money, like Bitcoins that to me sound like chocolate money someone bit into already. I avoid getting in that deep. The more virtual things get the more reality slips away. I tell myself to avoid the computer realm as much as possible, and yet, here I am again. Arthur Chappell.