Twitter, facebook, spotify: is there more to life than this?

I've just watched a TV programme where the conversation started by saying "so are you on Twitter, MySpace, facebook and all that?", "yes", the man replied, "I went on Jonathan Ross' show yesterday and now I have 1500 followers [on his Twitter account].

Isn't there more to life than social networking? I think there is. These websites are so temporary, and fleeting. MySpace is replaced by facebook which is replaced by Twitter, which is replaced by Spotify, which follows in the steps of Last.fm. And soon there will be another website. Something else offering social networking, or music, a collection of the two.

I don't think these sites are all bad. I use most of them - indeed, I am using a blog now and that hadn't been heard of five years ago - but I know that it is not the be all and end all of life. And yet people seem to think it might be.

This show I just watched talked about the sites as common place. Not amazing, and out of the realms of possibility, like a Ferrari, or going to the moon, but normal, everyday, involving everyone. So if you're young - 15 say - then the peer pressure to be on all of these things is going to be massive. When I was growing up, it was football stickers and pogs, and yoyos, but now you need an internet connection, and a fast computer to keep up with the trend.

Other problems like privacy, and advertising are involved too, but the biggest problem is that we think without these sites, our lives become uninteresting.

This is not true.

I am a Christian, and my relationship with Jesus means I have a friend by my side the whole time.

Recently I was walking to Uni along a road I walk down most days. I was stressed about doing the newspaper, and an essay, and I felt a nudge to notice the bigger things around me - the blossom on the hedge, the smell of the freshly cut grass, the feel of the air on my face. These things were tangible, these things were real, and these things were what I could be pleased to experience. The other issues were important, but just to stop thinking about them for a moment, and focus on those things that are bigger in life was refreshing.

So, yes there is more to life than Twitter, facebook and spotify.

Got go now, I'm off to check out some music on a certain website beginning with s and ending with y...!