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I kind of agree

"Not having an online presence" makes as much sense as "not having a presence at the pub" or "refusing to talk to people as a principle - isn't that so 'awesome'?"

It's fine, you don't need to be on every silly new 2.0 dot com, no issue there.

But you're shutting yourself out of a means of communication with other people. The fact that it involved technology is a detail

You can go to the pub and not drink, you can use FB with a fake name and not do anything with it and you can choose an email provider that suits you, but shutting yourself out does not make sense




Precisely. You don't have to be on every new fad website or app, broadcasting your every motion to the rest of the world. But you don't need to go to the extreme of not having email or walking to a library instead of using the amazing repository of information that is the internet.


> "Not having an online presence" makes as much sense as "not having a presence at the pub"

It does make sense, your Facebook/Twitter/... presence doesn't go away when you go to bed or go on holiday, it's always there to be ogled at, poke and prodded, unlike your non-presence in the pub when you stagger off home at closing time.


I know some people who deactivate their account every night, and apparently it's not that rare either: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2010/11/08/risk-re...


> "Not having an online presence" makes as much sense as "not having a presence at the pub"

Not quite- if I don't make it to the pub one night, people just brush it off and think "I'll talk to him next time."

People seem much more vitriolic if I don't respond to whatever internet/text message they sent with near immediacy- because it's always available.

It seems like there's a shut-off valve with the pub, or a land-line and answering machine- not so with facebook, texting, what have you.


As someone who barely ever picks up a call or reads an SMS in less than an hour, and often a full day, people are annoyed at first but soon get used to it.


> if I don't respond to whatever internet/text message they sent with near immediacy- because it's always available

I have to agree with you on this one. But I believe it suffices to say that no, you're not looking at email/fb/whatsapp/whatever all the time (and acting like that)




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