The Enid Blyton Society

So who here is into these things? I joined facebook at the urging of a friend about 6 months ago and have found it quite good for making contact with people such as cousins who live interstate, old schoolfriends etc. I have been trying to pull back from it recently after finding myself getting a bit obsessive about checking my "friends" status updates and updating my own status. I just read in the paper today that facebook is about to undergo a revamp to make it even more Twitter-like. I think that might just push me over the edge. I have never used Twitter myself but it does seem like the ultimate in inanity. Facebook is also planning to relax the rules about the number of "friends" one person can have. Apparently the limit is currently 5000 and some people have been complaining about this. Honestly, who has 5000 friends anyway???? And if you do have 5000 "friends" on facebook, how much time are you actually spending interacting with real flesh and blood people in real life?? Enid Blyton would be appalled, I think!

auscatherine wrote:So who here is into these things?......And if you do have 5000 "friends" on facebook, how much time are you actually spending interacting with real flesh and blood people in real life?? Enid Blyton would be appalled, I think!

A valid point, cobber. On the positive side, though, swapping messages in cyberspace enables one to interact with some terrific folks with whom face-to-face meetings are not practicable....people one would never even know existed in pre-internet days.

Of course some of us can well remember an earlier era when to become absorbed in a great book led to anxious cluckings from our elders about our 'anti-social behaviour'!
Some years back I came across a quotation which nicely summed up the issue...unfortunately for once I didn't photocopy it or note the source. From memory it went something like this:

• Books are a great supplement to human life,
  but a d****** poor substitute for it.

For books, I guess you substitute Computers, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

‘Aurélien Arkadiusz’

Aurélien wrote:Books are a great supplement to human life,
but a d****** poor substitute for it.


For books, I guess you substitute Computers, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

A very interesting post, Aurélien and a great quotation which I will copy and add to my collection of memorable sayings!

But what is Human Life, I ask - and why should one need a substitute? My life is full of substitution. As for SNSs, I have a Facebook page (God knows why...) and a MySpace account; both are largely ignored; in fact, I'd say they were a substitute for death. As for Twitter, what could that be a substitute for???

My daughter is on face book. I can't understand why, really. I said if you want to keep in touch with your friends, why don't you ring them, or text, or even email. Why do we need a face book anyway?

And to think I have recently started a Blyton group on Friends Re-united...

Moonraker wrote:And to think I have recently started a Blyton group on Friends Re-united...

That's something else I joined many years ago, and hardly look at the site now, even though they send me updates. I'll check it out again though, it there's a Blyton group.

They are bit of an oxymoron in my opinion! I use livejournal and have a facebook account, but I don't really use the facebook one. I don't know, it just seems impersonal despite being about social networking. At least in livejournal you can actually write abou things and really blog, rather than just status updates.

I also think the definition of "friend" has got looser since I was a child. Like what may be described as "humour". The vast majority of what I am told is "funny and I really should see it" leaves me dead. Now, Morecambe and Wise and "Andre Preview" makes me smile! I know today's society is different and hanging out time is restricted, but somehow a name on a contacts list doesn't cut it as a friend for me, even if I have things in common with them and tell them things.

How can you really have 5000 friends? You simply can't have that much of a relationship with them! I think when "friends" is used, it isn't what they mean at all. I don't know what word would though. Contacts? My collection? Actually, I think that last one sums it up - people collect contacts even with the best intention.

I penpal and have to keep the number low as I start to forget about the person and everyone merges into one ginormous blur, not to mention logistics of writing to penpals.

I'm on Facebook, but only really for getting in touch with people I've lost contact with

I've to be careful what I put on there due to my job, so tend to be pretty boring and use it only to mailing people...

I haven't joined anything like that (not even sure what "Twitter" is) as I imagine they'd take up a lot of time and I spend most of my internet time on here! But then part of the attraction of this Society and the Forums is getting to know others who enjoy Enid Blyton books (and books in general). I certainly count a number of people on here (and on the Blyton Yahoo Group) as friends, even though I'll probably never have the opportunity to meet some of them, and I like it when people post things in General Natter etc. which reveal more about their personality and interests. I'm lucky to have met quite a few Forumites at Enid Blyton Days and on the whole they were pretty much as I'd imagined from their posts, so internet interaction over a period of time does allow people to get to know one another up to a point. How amazing that we're able to form a community like this (5000 Facebook friends seems to me more like a list of names than a community!) - it just wouldn't have been possible in pre-internet days. If it weren't for the internet, and publications like the Enid Blyton Society Journal, I'd probably still think (as I used to) that I was the only one in the world who read Enid Blyton books as an adult!

Anita

Facebook is brilliant for us migrants! I keep mine locked to family and close friends and I put family photos on it for family and friends in England to look at. And, of course, I get to see photos of what my family and friends in England are doing. During the recent bushfire situation we left our house twice due to the fire threat, and I was able to pop into libraries and let people know via my status update that we were okay.

I'm not on Twitter, but I followed the CFA's twitter blog during the fires, and that was useful as well.

Good points everyone. Love Aurelien's quote too.

I forgot that I had joined an Enid Blyton group on facebook (before I discovered this forum of course).

And yes, the Internet is great. Was just musing on the fact that some people seem to live their entire lives via the computer these days.

Anita Bensoussane wrote: (5000 Facebook friends seems to me more like a list of names than a community!)
Anita

How true. I have a facebook account that I very rarely use and just the other week I had an email to tell me that some chinese girl who lives in America and whom I have certainly never heard of in my life had "added" me as her friend. Since I dont even have a picture of myself on there I cant even claim that she was attracted by my good looks. Its either a mistake or she just collects names. As she didn't answer my query I dont know. As Aurelien suggested somewhere earlier with regard to books, the internet is a good friend but a bad master. People who spend all their time and conduct their lives completely on the net seriously need to get out and take a nice walk or something.

I think that the more friends that some of these people can boast, somehow makes them feel successful and popular. I could probably gather my closest friends in a broom cupboard, and still have enough room to dance! But hey, what a good time we'd have!

I'd rather be on a forum like this than on facebook. I do think it's amazing how a forum such as this can bring like-minded people together from across the world: that's the power of the net and is something, as Anita said, we couldnt have done a few years back. I am on facebook, but hardly ever go on there, as there seems very little to interest me.