Doctor says to world: how we have been is how we should be.

Darwin says to doctor: No. Please come back when you actually understand science. Thanks for playing.

I agree with the Dr. decreased face to face time is very unhealthy. Sorry to be rude to the first poster, but when you actually understand the need for human interaction and the effects it has on ones body, then come back and comment.

Methinks you might be in need of some help Luke - how many of your recent postings have been about Facebook / social media? Obsessive much?

Could it be that you, like so many, are being sucked into the misguided believe that social media sites are the be all and end all of everything these days?

I hope not.

Get some sun? Not sure how I'm supposed to do that without leaving the country.

I don't do online networking. Can't use twitter or facebook at work and its pretty pointless only being around for 2-3 hours in the evening as you're expected to be on 24x7. E-mail is starting to replace personal contact for me though. I very rarely ring or go and see someone unless I'm not near a computer. Or unless I force myself to do it.

I know from personal experience that too much sitting is bad for me, and I've recently noticed a rash or something on my wrist from too much mousing. I try to force a break evey hour or so, but at weekends 4 or 5 hours can vanish just like that. Especially on wet days.

Social Media is just a label. We eat processed sh- we don't exercise. We get sick and we die of a range of cancers from the crap floating around in our environment. Then some twit makes a point of isolating one tiny fraction of the systems enabling this decline of humanity and says this is the cause!

He gets paid, the media gets something to wail about, you get a blog topic for the day and the Universe keeps grinding on not giving a monkey's about any of it.

Not particularly bothered by this as almost all of my on-line social networking is geared around organising functions in real life. I prefer actual to virtual contact if possible.

Why don't they try focusing their time on finding out how to cure cancer instead of wasting their time in telling us that everything causes cancer.

I'm a bit of an introvert, so without Twitter & Facebook, I'd probably spend all my time at home alone with a good book. Enjoyable, but a bit crazy-making sometimes. I don't know about physically sick though.

I like keeping up with what's going on in other people's lives (babies, engagements, deaths, new jobs etc), and I find that social media has enabled me to find this out passively, and helps make conversations with people more meaningful. I don't make people uncomfortable by asking about the ex they broke up with a few months ago, we don't have to spend time everytime we meet going over what happened since the last meeting. The online stuff augments, it doesn't replace.

@ Phil #1: Evolution is about the organism adapting to its environment. As our environment is changing (in that we do not spend as much face to face time as we may once have - although the fact here is that I spend all my day at work with other people. I'm not sure why you and the doctor don't), the organism will adapt.

What both you and the doctor refer to as "sickening" is, in fact, the dying off of examples of the species that are not fit for our current environment. This is a good thing.

Hi all, some interesting points here, thanks for the feedback. Just want to point out to Noshow (3) that yes, social media does feature heavily on this blog, because it is increasingly interweaved with technology. That's the point - it's a tech blog. I do try to vary it, though, and I'm always looking for topics. If you have (better) ideas, please don't hesitate to drop me a line. Thanks again!