I say this because these days you can spend most of your waking hours putting info about yourself on sites like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, LinkMe, MyTinkerbelle (I made that last one up) and visiting all sorts of other on-line forums, meeting places, directories, cabals, covens, clubs, secret societies, blah-blah-blah.

The thing is, I don't have hours and hours of free time (or any freetime for that matter, thank-you children) and I got to thinking that the time I do have could be better used for drinking Coopers beer, writing and reading books and even going out into the big wide world and doing something utterly revolutionary like actually talking to people. You know, like face-to-face, rather than Facebooking.

So I've, as one of my friends put it, "absented myself" from Facebook. I've taken down my profile and I have to tell you, when I pressed that delete button I had a sudden surge of pleasure the like of which I haven't known since - well, you know what I mean.

One of the things about Facebook in particular which was starting to drive me nuts was that everyone knows what you're up to and I'm not too sure I want everyone who has ever known me knowing what I'm eating this lunchtime Oh, okay, it was a turkey breast sandwich with mayo and some cucumber.
Now, I know one of Facebook's raison d'etres is so people can keep in touch - and good luck to them - but I figured I can just email people I want to keep in touch with - or even call them on the phone - and frankly I can't imagine Facebook browser Doreen in Grand Falls, Ohio is much interested in what I had for lunch (Doreen, if you are interested then you seriously need to start getting out a bit more...).

The other thing is this - how come people have 225 friends? I mean, blogging friends you can understand - usually they are people who like your writing, for example, but how can someone on Facebook have 225 friends - people they actually know? Personally I'd be hard put to name 225 people I've met in my life, let alone have them all as friends. I mean who has a front room, or a house for that matter, big enough to accommodate them if they all decide to pop around for tea and biscuits on a Saturday morning? How could you possibly buy each one a birthday present? And if you send out Christmas cards, well you'd better get a move on this weekend, there's a lot of licking to be done.

Now, the blogging.
I'm going to continue with that because I like doing it and it's not too onerous and you can do it from under a thick cloak which means you can be quite free and easy about what you say, which is always a very wonderful thing.