The Web Kills!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Newsweek comes out with a cover story asking "Is The Web Driving Us Mad?" and everybody's going crazy.
Some of the concerns are well founded, some are hysteria.
Apparently the article deals with the amount of time humans spend with face book, twitter, texting, e-mails, online. I haven't read it yet but I will.
I do, however, have opinions.
I have been saying for a very long time what an amazing waste technology can be. The internet is such a powerful source for information. For learning. And yet most people use e-mail, for example, to forward stupid jokes, and use the web to devour porn and keep up with the Kardashians' wacky high jinks and endless gossip from the entertainment industry.
Layer your options with texting, twitter and facebook and you have endless opportunities to gather and share information.
Instead you get garbage.
I watch people texting all the time and I think they look stupid. Staring down at their goddamn little device, sending out inane comments and waiting for more inane replies. I'm talking about people who text constantly, the people who never put their goddamn smart phones down. People whose phones have to be within reach no matter where they are or what they are doing. As a bartender I was always amused at the people who set their phone down on the bar in front of them like they couldn't possibly be separated from it even when they were out relaxing.
I understand the value of texting occasionally versus making a call, especially at work where you can goof off surreptitiously.
I see people walking down the street with phones glued to their ears and I think they look stupid.
In the interest of full disclosure I have to admit that I hate phones in general. The phone to me is an interruption. Unless I'm being informed that I just won $46 million.
Twitter drives me crazy. News shows, sports talk shows etc. flash twitter feeds across the bottom of the screen and they never say anything intelligent. They either agree with what is being said or they add something meaningful like "yeah, that is so real, man." And the really scary fact is the network probably had to sift through 43,717 comments just to get to the ones they decide are screen worthy.
And iPhone has Siri. What the hell is that? Apple felt the need to create a pseudo life form? A voice that you can talk to, ask questions of and make your next BFF.
Have you seen the ad with John Malkovich talking to Siri? Alone in a room? Quite bizarre. Looking to 'her' for jokes and conversation.
That is not so far fetched in my mind. Lots of lonely people in the world. In the future I can see The Siri defense as a legal strategy. "Yes, Your Honor, he did chop off his mother's head, hollow it out and use it for a soup bowl, but the defendant contends that Siri made him do it. We plead not guilty by reason of Siri."
There has been much hysteria over the years about kids playing video games. They don't go outside, they are lazy, they don't get enough exercise.
I think that is a bunch of crap. Every generation resents what the next generation has.
Look at my generation. My parents' generation railed about the horrible effects of marijuana and rock and roll, and we turned out just fine. (?)
I don't have a problem with the technology, I have a problem with people using it so stupidly.
And so rudely. One thing I despise is when you are talking to someone and they begin texting, looking down at their phone instead of looking into your eyes. Or they get a magic beep that tells them they just received a text and they look away from you immediately because the message could very well be life changing and is definitely more important than the conversation you were just having. Absolutely unacceptable.
Apparently there was a study completed in China indicating that the brains of people who use these technologies excessively begin to change and show the same characteristics of drug addicts and alcoholics, with reduced ability to process speech, motor control, emotions and sensory information.
I'm not ready to jump on the band wagon on that one but it is believable in a certain sense.
It is easier to be stupid than to get smart. We take these technologies and reduce them to their lowest functionality, comparing notes on what we had for breakfast. No thinking involved. I can see the brain atrophying.
There is probably a lot of overkill in the article and there will be much hysteria in the reaction, from dinosaurs like me and those who are plugged in.
My problem is that we use all this amazing technology to make ourselves stupider. And waste time.
I think it is a commentary on the human condition. I'm not sure what the message is but I'm pretty sure it's not positive.