Non Contributors
I've noticed something that is becoming more prevalent on the internet, and I'm finally writing about it.
People who do not contribute.
They read absolutely everything that everybody they vaguely know posts across the social networks, and never contribute anything themselves. They claim they “don't do Twitter”, or they “don't do Facebook”, and yet in conversation with them, they make mistakes, and you realise that they know things they should not.
It's a bit like going to the pub with a circle of friends and just sitting there all night, listening to everybody else, but never saying a word yourself. The usual incentives you might offer to take part in the social internet don't really work with these people, because they do notwant to take part.
In my mind the whole argument about what to contributecomes down to the unspoken truth about all of usthat the most interesting things we might share with the wider world are often the weirdest thingsand that we all have weird thoughts, ideas, opinions, or behaviours, and that those things are what make us interestingthey make us who we are.
Perhaps John Keating said it best when debating the meaning of life in Dead Poet's Society;the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?