Many years ago, you used to communicate with your friends and family by meeting up with them. Then, people moved away and lived in different towns, but technology made the world smaller – and you started to communicate by phone, building to building. Then phones came out of buildings, and in to your car and pocket – and you could keep in touch pretty much anywhere. But it was a bit of a pain, because you actually had to talk to people.

Then came email. You could communicate, but only when you wanted, from the comfort of your own PC. But it wasn’t really when you wanted, because if you didn’t reply with in a certain amount of time, folk started ringing you to see if you were dead. If you didn’t answer your phone, they came knocking, and that defeated the whole object of the exercise.

And then – after a while – came Facebook. You could keep up with people, and if you didn’t post to your wall for a week or two, someone would post on it for you to see what you were up to – and you could answer when you felt like it. People know you are still around if you just comment ‘lol’ on someone’s status, so it’s all good.

Facebook somehow managed to kill – or at least severely maim – traditional email. Facebook messages come from people you have pre-approved, so there is no spam. Apart from Aunt Ethel promoting her Senior’s Sponsored Marathon. Some people no longer use their email addresses – they are quite happy to live entirely through Facebook. The same goes for instant messaging – there is instant messaging within Facebook, but it is only on when you visit the site, and you can turn individual users or whole groups on or off at the touch of a button – you can talk to who you want, when you want.

The problems only come up when you enable everyone to chat with you, and then install Facebook on your phone…there’s no escape…!

So how do you use the net to communicate?