Like tentacles wrapping themselves around my neck gripping tighter and tighter until they threaten to dissipate my entirety, my urge to write suffocates me until finally I succumb to it. No, this is not out of my sheer love for writing. This is something else. This is out of the constant fear gnawing at my conscience- the fear of never being able to write again. Fear of being permanently expelled from the land of these words which I call my sweethearts. Almost as if sensing my fear, a dear friend moves in for the kill and with a nonchalant ‘write me a piece’ I know my answer is going to be far from the NO it should be. I offer my excuses and plead with him to tell me he is joking, telling him I am a terrible writer. Then something inside me says to go for it, what is there to lose?

After begrudgingly telling him yes, it dawns on me- what the hell will I write about? I cannot stop myself from offering a slight grunt of dissatisfaction. Me and my big thumb!

Oh yes I did! I have adapted the phrase “me and my big mouth” to suit me. I do after all spend more than half of my day on my blackberry and my thumbs have become my most potent weapon when it comes to communication. Who knew that developing opposing thumbs could turn out to be so useful? I mean who needs a mouth when you can have a thumb!

In this age of technology, communication has become incredibly easy. With the invention of ‘smart phones’, the old message in a bottle or conventional letter writing seems silly and time consuming. The world is now at our fingertips- Literally. With ever increasing social networking sites, we have made hundreds, excuse me, thousands of friends all without having to walk out of the front door; how convenient!

I too have joined the army of billions around the world who spend on average close to 40 hours a week on social networks. That is the average working week and we aren’t even getting paid for it!

 However it has not dawned on any of us that this ‘harmless social networking’ has increasingly become an addiction. Although we hate to admit it, many of us are hooked and every message, picture, comment gives us our daily fix. What else could it be called if you wake up to check your notifications on Facebook and unread BBM’s before even thinking about the day ahead? Would it not be an addiction which could cause you to spend every waking minute holding your cellular phone?  

Is it being ignored because it is not cocaine or Mandrax? Perhaps it is not taken as an addiction as it is not as ‘serious’.

If so, then the next one is a shocker. Teens that spend hours on social networks have shown to have been performing at a decreasing rate in school mainly because of the distraction from their cell phones which ultimately lead to lack of concentration. As if that was not bad, psychological studies have shown that teenagers who spend increasing amounts of time on social networks usually became shy or could not hold sustainable conversations in ‘real life’.

Are all you parents getting worried? Well fear not because that ‘Jesse’ that your child is speaking to might be a 47 year old pedophile from Kazakhstan (no offence to those of u from Kazakhstan) but that really should be the last on your list of worries. At least your children are not smoking weed or taking drugs right? So let’s put this matter on the ‘to do’ list after ‘laundry’ then when the laundry is done we can deal with it. After all it is not as ‘serious’ right?

WRONG!

This is not in any way meant to scare or unsettle anyone. Social networks are great they have made communication so much easier but they do come with their fair share of responsibilities. Like beer, they have to be enjoyed responsibly. Like everything else in life.

So here I’ve come to the end of my piece. First I began with no sense of direction but with the burning desire to once again write a piece. Armed with only passion and perhaps a little annoyance, I made the painstaking journey into the unknown. Some 800 words later I will say I fared quite well, an important lesson for both life and social networks. Sometimes journeying into the unknown can become scary and intimidating, but with courage, determination and perhaps a little annoyance it can end up becoming fun (in some cases informative as depicted above)

But what does this have to do with social networks? Well it’s simple really, social networks are the unknown to us, although some might role their eyes and think I’m a dumbass who has been living under a rock to make such a statement. The truth is they are an unknown as they are a relatively new concept. Like life we should approach them with caution and we will find that soon we will enjoy them and feel comfortable using them and slowly  they will become an integral part of society without imposing as much of a danger as they do now.

So why did I choose this specific topic? Well the answer is not that complex. Had it not been for the creation of these social networks which allow me to speak to a person in Durban without having to wait days for the response, I would not be here writing this article. Although, I could slap myself because of my inability to utter a simple NO – excuse me, my inability to type a simple NO. I will adamantly confess that I almost enjoyed writing this, ALMOST. I do still curse Donda Khumalo for making me write this piece without any direction. Who knows maybe I too like EE Cummings am establishing a legacy? Mine 1 of directionless pieces? Whatever the case may be, my work here is done.