Mam and Dad wouldn’t have approved of social networking. In their day, unless you owned a telephone, as no-one along our street did, only a visit in person or a formal letter could ascertain what someone had had for their tea. Balancing the fleeting desire to know against the trouble it took to find out, they seldom bothered. It’s different now; I can tell you what Nicholas Hytner had for his tea, often while he’s still having it. Not that it stops at tea, of course; the hundreds of ‘likes’ I receive when reporting a satisfactory stool testify to that. No, what social networking principally offers is the opportunity for full disclosure. Having written about being shy, gay, a victim of mugging and diagnosed with cancer, it seems only right that Facebook friends and twitter followers be privy to my entire life as it happens. Or, increasingly, doesn’t.
- Alan Bennett
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