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This morning I deactivated my Facebook account. It was a clinical experience, which involved clicking the box that best described why I was leaving. I chose the 'spend too much time on Facebook' option. Even at the end, the program pulls up profile pictures of your friends and tells you that they will miss you ~ a last tug on the heart strings as though you are going to loose them forever, when in fact they are only an email or telephone conversation away. Facebook is a real seducer, as well as being rather annoying. I thought I'd opted out but was advised that I only have to enter my name and password again for all my information to be retrieved. Also, apparently if you get curious within the first two week period to see whether your site has actually disappeared you will accidentally reactivate the account. I have to be strong. I will be strong. I will not be tempted to look for this particular virtual self.

I found my friends responses to why I was going off Facebook quite interesting ~ some just said goodbye, others were full of admiration for my decision, most wanted an explanation, some were not at all amused! I feel my time is best spent writing this blog ~ I've certainly had more readers than I ever had on Facebook. The tracker on my site since 21 December 2009 reveals that in the past six month period I've notched up over 7,000 page views from people in 79 countries around the world. I received a message yesterday from an anonymous person who simply said that they liked my blog and will continue to read it.

I was really annoyed this week when I heard the rationale behind Stelarc's Articulated Head (actually called 'The Thinking Head), which is what I would call The Prosthetic Head ~ Mark 11 ~ a 3D interactive unit comprising a simulated image of Stelarc's face on a computer monitor on top of a computer and movable apparatus. Anyway, one of the reasons for constructing such a contraption is so that elderly people suffering from Alzheimer's disease, will, in the future be afforded a robotic embodied presence that will remind them to take their medicine. But I ask, is this really what we desire? What about the human voice and human touch ~ oh, I'm sure those working on voice recognition and robotic vocal sounds are working on that issue, but surely they haven't perfected in any way the feel of a warm human hand on someones arm ~ the reassurance that someone near understands. Which brings me to the real point. Why is so much research and development going into producing humanoid robots supposedly to make our lives easier, when so many people are unemployed, and so many people could fulfill the duties (paid or voluntary) of those very robots that would be put into service? Is it simply that we don't want to have to interact with the elderly, those with dementia, those who cannot walk without assistance, those whose only quality of life is to be alone with machines (television, computer, robot). Is this our final end, a gradual progression from one life-less machine to another and then to be 'cared' for by a machine until the utter end when we are placed on life-support (and I can hear my son's lovely voice interjecting here and repeating those oft used words of Monty Python - ah! the machine that goes ping!). I'll end on that note, for I've suddenly become aware of my fingers tip-tapping the keys. I'll never understand our obsession with robots ~ are they really so perfect, so desirable, or is that IT~ that we are NOT like them ~ and we aspire so much to be like them, unbreakable ~ or able to be renewed with replaceable parts...