While the lights are out in Twitterland

During this period of "maintenance" when twitter is down on a particularly unproductive Friday, I took the opportunity to take a look at what folk were saying on identi.ca. In doing so I felt a little dirty. Like I was cheating on Twitter when she was on a business trip, then it struck me how I have developed emotions for these social networking services. Not the people on them, I could care less about what happens to @scoblizer in real life but the attachment was to the service. I actually felt that I was cheating on Twitter by using identi.ca while She was down.

So I posted my feeling and one of the humans that actually appear on all my networks Joey in Hong Kong asked the question:

@dedlam LOL. What about FF? Who's your favorite mistress?

My reply to her was that FriendFeed was also a favourite mistress but to our surprise both of us independantly concluded that Plurk was the beer goggle induced "hot" girl you pick up from a party and take home and find in the morning that... well lets just say "not so hot".

Upon reflection, I have become a little frightened by the prospect that as social networks and online communities take on a life of their own. The bond that we feel towards the community is not because of the members but because we as species have evolved into a monsterous abomination of nature that develops emotional attachments to binary code, html and telephonic touch-screen devices with motion and light sensors.

The next venture coming for the Google labs is aptly named Android, but with this sudden moment of clarity, I ask, Is this emotional attachment part of an elaborate scheme? Will the next generation be part human and part technology? Starting as genetic cyborgs within two or three generations will all our humanity is bred out of us the dominant species on this planet will indeed be Android? I shudder to think what lies in store for the human race.

Is Twitter Satan's Spawn?

(Can you tell it's Friday afternoon?)