Tag: social media

Time’s vacuum

London

Days vanish into the Internet’s virtual cesspool, one after the other, each spiralling deeper until slipping from my grasp only to be replaced by the next.

An intricate, expensive system devised to suck away time, as if powered by all those hours spent by billions of people every day. As if driven by time itself.

Are you hunched over your laptop, internally debating the merits of a four-pack over an eight-pack on the Tesco website? Those minutes are driving it. Weighing the three day weekend in Rome against the minibreak in Lanzarote? Grist to the mill. And which hotel would be better? This one has a prettier spa, but that one’s in the centre of town. Tick, tick, tick, the smiling face of the Internet demon is relishing your time.

Or are you standing on the morning tube reading this on your phone? Tick, tick… Or the hours spent trying to unfuck what it’s done to your book of holiday snaps? Tick, tick, tick…

And we do this to ourselves, no-one compels us. We do it because we have convinced ourselves we’re being productive, or that more choice is, obviously, better.

So here I am, writing this, staring at a screen. Tick… tick… tick…

Buy me a drink and I’ll tell you some lies

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What a fuss

London

Media – old, new and undecided – is flapping about like a turkey that survived Christmas. There’s a new social media chick in the neighborhood, and her name is Vero.

We’ve all heard it before: We’re giving power back to the people! We’re not going to use you as blind and willing canon fodder, as fat sacks of data to be bought and sold and traded with whomever we wish. We’re different!

We’ll see. To be fair to her, Vero has started off well if a little shakily; but then that’s part of the fun of being in at the start. No ads, we’re told, and we’ll be trusted with a timeline un-fucked by cash hungry algorithms. She’s not a free date though; Vero expects to be paid by her users. Which is fair enough. And her first million dates get a free ride for life, so get in. I’m told a girl never forgets her first million.

And yes, your intrepid correspondent has taken the plunge. Will Vero remain true to her virtuous vows or sell herself to be gang-banged by the cynically grinning social mafia thugs? In the words of Mr Fats Waller: one never knows, does one?

Buy me a drink and I’ll tell you some lies

£5.00

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