don't panic, Jobso, it's the Facebook app they're trashing, not the iPhone

For the umpteenth time, some idiot journo has been saddled with the “why social network is dying” or why some “people are abandoning social network” story. Blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda, woof, woof, woof.  As you can tell, the au courant USA Today jumping on the teeny tiny bandwagon. Here, watch this AP video report by Diane Kepley:

If you’re thinking of opting out because Farmville or Mafia Wars is taking up way too much of your valuable time and privacy, I’d do it the old fashioned way and do it yourself , and not use such services that claim to get you off social networks “painlessly” like Suicide Machine or Seppukoo – there have been allegations these services steal all the info they remove from your social networking sites and sell it off to spammers, scammers and other goddammers.

You know, as much as I dislike some of the business practises of the people who put together this technology, most of the users enjoy and are addicted to the technology. They tweet mindlessly about sandwiches and bowel movements, they update their status on Facebook with insipid diary entries, they chat in an abbreviated online English dialect that would confuse a court reporter, they comment like barking dogs and bleating sheep on web blogs and YouTube. For some out there, it’s overwhelming, but for the rest of us that get it, it couldn’t have happened a moment too soon. Some idealistic nerds hoped this technology would elevate everybody – horseshit! – Gutenberg thought the same thing about movable type – people will chatter and exchange inanities in much the same way they have been doing since communication and civilization met and shook hands. I’m not too worried about any impending walls that will separate people from some information, because that type of thing never lasts, is never permanent. Someone will always enable the free exchange of communication and information.