Okay, I admit it. This is almost definitely not an American phenomenon. I suspect it’s a worldwide thing that happened since I got to America. However, my friend Ryan tells me that blogs are supposed to have themes and stick to them, and America is my theme, ergo this is a problem with America. Nobody said this was going to be fair.

Something new is happening in the world. Nobody had heard of it ten years ago, but now you’re doing it with almost everyone you know. That new thing is social networking. Social networking is the great electronic bringing-together of people. Social networking allows people to interact online with their friends, their family and their colleagues more easily than ever before. With a couple of clicks of a mouse, it’s now possible to learn that your ex-girlfriend became a lesbian, discover that your boss spends his weekends performing live-action roleplay and find pictures of your uncle Bill vomiting in a pint glass in a strip bar. How did we live without this?

A fascinating part of social networking is a feature called the “status update”. You can now inform your friends, family and colleagues what you’re up to at any given second. I am going to take the dog for a walk. I am going to work. I am at work. I am still at work. I am probably working late. I am working late. You can even do this using your mobile phone. I’m standing at the bus stop. I’m thinking about buying some chairs. I’m taking a dump.

This is great. We’re all in touch with everyone we know, all the time. Unfortunately, it is also the root cause of man’s very newest newest personality disorder. Let me introduce antisocial networking: the state of being more involved in updating your status message than in actually doing whatever it is you’re claiming to be doing.

Let me illustrate this principle by showing you a selection of Twitter posts.

Wow, that must be some great brunch they’re all having. I missed one hell of a time there. Why did I end up staying home? Well, wait. Let me show you a photograph of that brunch.

These people are not having a great time. They’re so interested in talking about having a good time that they have forgotten to have a good time. There are antisocial networkers reading this now. I know there are, because I mentioned this post on Twitter. Come on, guys. Come on, you antisocial networkers. The last time you actually had a good time, did you Tweet about it whilst it was happening? As you slipped between the sheets with Miss South America, did you lean over to rummage for your phone in your crumpled jeans on the floor? As you pointed the nose of the powerboat you’d unexpectedly been lent towards the setting Pacific sun and slid the throttle towards the bow, did you ponder which pocket your iPhone was in? As you opened the door to discover that your boyfriend had covered the entire house in rose petals, put up the sets of shelving that had been in the garage since 2001, smeared himself in honey and prostrated himself on the couch, did you look at the kitchen table to check whether you hibernated your laptop? No. You did not. This is because actual interesting stuff was really happening to you. Perhaps a good Twitter feature would be to add “and bored” to the end of every post.