My Online Self

OK, so I have a million people I really don’t care about on my Facebook, I stream the latest music on Last FM and I regularly trawl technology blogs to keep abreast of advancements but what I really don’t understand is why I’m addicted to this screen in front of my face. Maybe because I use the web in almost every aspect of my life, to keep in touch with friends, for shopping, managing my money, and for entertainment . . . . basically I’m a typical 20 something . It seems that today we are more about living our lives through this window into the so called ‘World Wide Web’ than life itself. And what scares me is that it’s only going to get worse – according to Eric Schmidt (Google’s CEO) we will rely on the web for the most mundane of tasks, we will check videos of restaurants to gauge the ‘atmosphere’ before we eat there and look at potential flats from all angles before we get shown around by the 17 year old Saturday kid who doesn’t really care anyway. Even today most of this content can be screened direct to our iPhone’s so we can do it on the move, god forbid we leave our desks and actually interact with one another.

Hotel 360 degree videos have been common place in the travel industry for years but to be frank, they are awful. One of the most popular websites right now is Where The Hell Is Matt - this insanely happy man wanders the globe and dances like a child high on sherbet lemons and Panda Pops – but it’s incredibly addictive. There is an estimated 20 hours of video uploaded to You Tube every minute and we can’t get enough of watching other people complete the most random of tasks. Let alone the world of photos, the famous site FLICKR estimates that approximately 3 – 5 million photos are updated daily from around the globe. What does all this mean?? Does anyone actually have an experience in life they keep to themselves anymore, does everyone have to know and see everything about everyone else?

Any self respecting traveller these days updates his/her Facebook frequently, logs into WAYN to meet friends, uploads pics onto Flickr, shares ‘hilarious’ videos on YouTube, finds somewhere to stay on Coach Surfing and stays in touch with home through Skype.

When I went travelling I didn’t even have an iPod and to be totally honest I loved the escapism and the feeling of exploration. What is this obsession with staying in touch, my advice is to go explore, experience as much as possible but for the love of god keep it to yourself, the rest of the world is really not that interested.