Does the internet influence how you find music?

I love too much already.

Someone (a lot younger than me) asked me today: Has the internet had an effect on the range of music that you seek out?

I had to say no. Not because the internet hasn’t had a huge impact on the way we all relate to music. But because I don’t really seek out music any more.

Armchair anger is not enough

One evening last week, I was on Twitter making small talk with some friends, having a laugh, trying to wind down after a hard day at work.

Then someone I follow decided to spend the evening inviting people to share experiences of poverty, and retweeting them. This appeared to find approval among a lot of people, who made comments such as 'This is what Twitter is for'.

I unfollowed him.

My year on Twitter, and a thank-you letter to my invisible friends

When you get to a certain age it can be hard to make new friends. Or the ones you have aren't always around when you need them. (Three of my best friends are now at the other end of the country, the other side of the world, or have gone mad.)

So where do you turn to for friendship? The internet, obviously.

In cyberspace, no-one can hear you stammer

Rudyard Kipling's illustration for The Cat That Walked By Himself

Last year, I went to my first tweet-up. I wasn't impressed. It consisted mainly of people sitting around a table looking at their phones.

Twitter is a brilliant hiding place for shy people. In cyberspace, no-one can hear you stammer.

Don't call me a silver surfer

It's official. The golden generation previously known as 'digital natives' no longer exists.

Researchers at the Open University have decided that there is no generational difference between how people use the internet. It's more about learning styles or something. (I think this is just an academic take on 'you're as old as you feel'.)

Thank goodness for that.

I am old enough to remember...

The other night I was wasting time on Twitter as usual and stumbled upon a hashtag game #iamoldenoughtoremember. I couldn't resist joining in.

Contributions could be categorised as follows:

Nostalgia:
#iamoldenoughtoremember hovering your finger over the pause button when taping the top40 on a C90.
...there were 240 pennies in a pound.
...gramophones, 78s, 45s, LPs and EPs. And cassette recorders.
Spangles- the sweeties.
...the original Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men.

Weird stuff I thought I'd forgotten:
...Izal medicated loo roll. Or should that be tracing paper at school.
...buying shampoo in sachets because nobody washed their hair often enough to warrant the expense of a whole bottle.
...outside toilets.
...putting wallpaper on school books (why?)

Social comment:
#iamoldenoughtoremember when we had communities. Then Thatcher came to power and told us 'Individualism and commercialism' was good.
...thinking we'd won the punk wars. [that one of mine]

Then I remembered: #iamoldenoughtoremember what I did before Twitter.

Don't bring back Top of the Pops

Middle-aged people went a bit mad last night as BBC4 chose a Top of the Pops theme for their regular Friday music night. I followed the Twitter stream for #totp and it was trending all night.

The first hour and a half was a clip show from 1964 to 1975 (with colour coming in for Lola by the Kinks). Husband periodically walked into the room, looked at the TV, said 'he's dead' and walked out again. But I had a great time. And not just because the Faces, T Rex and David Bowie were on one after the other.

The IT Crowd

Why I like working with geeks:
1. There is always someone to talk to on Twitter.
2. They make you realise that Microserfs was not fiction.
3. They never say things like: ‘We can get on with our project because management are more interested in other things.’ They do say: ‘The eye of Sauron is turned elsewhere.’

Why Twitter is the new rock'n'roll

Many years ago when I worked in newspapers you always had to write some 'highlights of the year' to fill the column inches when everyone was on holiday.

I didn't think I'd still be doing it years later, without getting paid, but some things are too good not to share. My media highlights of the year were all on Twitter.

Facebook tramples on graves

Dear Facebook

Please stop trying to be clever and start thinking about real people’s real feelings.

You have the biggest customer base in the world and you have no concept of customer service. You don’t even have any way of contacting a customer service person.

I don’t want to ‘engage’ with you. I don’t want to follow you on Twitter or ‘like’ your page (I DON’T ‘like’ you) or ‘share’ a user story about how Facebook has changed my life. (‘We are always interested in hearing from our users’: I don’t think so).

I just want to tell someone – a real person – that you have screwed up.

And I don’t want you to tell me how to ‘engage’ with the site. I don’t need you to tell me who my friends are or how to talk to them. And I don’t want you selecting random photos of me and telling me what to do with them.

Yesterday I logged on to Facebook and there was one of my photos with the heading ‘Tag a friend’. A face was highlighted and underneath it said ‘Whose face is this?’

It’s my dead sister. I posted that photo as a tribute on her 20th anniversary.

She is not on Facebook.

Life’s too short

Finally someone has written a song called ‘Life’s too short’, my own personal Older Than Elvis motto.

Actually they wrote it a long time ago. The record by the Lafayettes was apparently released in this country in 1962, when I was (I promise) a very small child. I finally discovered it last week courtesy of Brian Eno.

Someone at BBC4 decided that last Friday was going to be Brian Eno night. Eno has a reputation as a rock intellectual so I’m pleased to say that I learned three interesting things from the Arena documentary: 1. Brian Eno wrote the theme tune for Arena. 2. Suffolk looks very nice. 3. He loves this record.

I love it too. I also love the fact that some rock’n’rollers have subverted YouTube from a medium for sharing videos to a medium for sharing their record collections. You won’t find anything this good on Spotify.

Everybody's going surfing...

The internet is 40, apparently. I have to say I was surprised. But looking back at the mid-90s, when I first became aware of it, even that feels like a long time ago.

I remember when we still called it the information superhighway. (These days, there are times I feel like I’m in the bus lane. Thanks, Virgin Media.)

I remember working in an office when we were so excited at our ‘You’ve got mail’ message. And it was someone sending jokes to everyone he knew who had email. Because there were so few of us it was all you could do with it.

I remember when Friends Reunited was cutting edge.

...I’m getting nostalgic about the internet??

I loved the internet straight away, for the same reason I love going to libraries. All that information waiting to be discovered. I love Web 2.0 even more. All those conversations waiting to be had.

For a while I wondered whether loving the internet so much was a Bad Thing. Then I read a heartwarming story in the Guardian. Ivy Bean is more than twice my age and social networking keeps her life, well, sociable. I hope I have as many ‘followers’ when I get old.