Are you wired, or weird?

This is a guest post from Kevin Tea.

Two weeks ago a lone gunman ran - or rather drove - amok through the sleepy county of Cumbria killing 12 people and injuring 20 more before turning the gun on himself. No-one knows what went through his brain - apart from a self inflicted 22 bullet - or what the reasons were why on a sunny, warm Wednesday morning he decided to go on a murderous rampage. It did get me thinking about how people become disconnected and in a world where we spend more and more time online are we becoming more wired - or weird - and less able to connect with others in a human manner.

Most of us onliners are social and communicate with others throughout the worlds via Twitter, Facebook instant messaging etc. We react to other online personae better if there's a photograph rather than an anonymous avatar and it is possible to build strong, online friendships as well as passing, casual e-quaintances. 

I admit to a slight downside in that there are some "real life" friends (not that I am suggesting friends in cyberspace are unreal ) that I would prefer most of the time link up with via email than pick up a phone, but on the whole I like to think that I am fairly well balanced - well I would, wouldn't I, after all social media is social. But what about anti-social media.

There was a story some months ago about a couple in China that let their baby starve to death while they engaged in some heavy online gaming activity. I am not suggesting all who indulge in Second Life or World of Warcraft (although I do harbour doubts about my friend Julia's addiction to Mafia Wars on Facebook!) are going to become so disengaged from the real world that they cease to function in what generally passes as human behaviour. But is there a point where, for some people, cyber life becomes more real to them than what we consider the real world?

Maybe the slip into this online persona is so gradual people don't see what is happening. Maybe there should be some sort of online audit so we can monitor our behaviour, our online/offline life balance to ensure that we keep a foot in both worlds. How honest can we be with ourselves that we appear to be spending more time webside rather than maintaining a relationship with partners, children, friends, family, etc?  We all know that the web can become obsessive but do we know when to apply the brakes?

Anyway, I am now off to the local pub for a bit of banter before returning to complete the primitive and tribal image of man clutching beer and burning flesh (BBQing) and settling down to watch the documentary on the Rolling Stones recording Exile On Main Street. See you on the other side, sometime soon.

Kevin Tea blogs about web 2.0 and cloud computing, with a slant towards small and medium sized businesses at Web2andmore.net You can follow him on Twitter @kevincumbria

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