Monday 3 February 2014

Dear Twitter, I want you to be the first to know...



Something came to my attention today that caused me to put down my soy latte and copy of Heat. Uh huh. Seriously. The something to which I refer was a news article about the birth of Kevin Jonas baby girl. I can't claim to be a Jonas junkie, or whatever slang name their fans have been branded with (probably something ending in 'aniacs' or 'ators'), but as a committed moaner re the world of social media my attention was bought.

Kevin Jonas commentated the birth of his first daughter via Twitter.

Are we okay with this? Hell to the freakin no.

We are a vine away from having our children's birth broadcast via live video link, sponsored by Samsung. Nurses all over the country are shooing camera phones from baby's grand debut. Away from the destination they had tapped into their teeny tiny sat navs before they heard of the imminent media intrusion.

As far as I can remember, for my last 23 birthdays, Christmas's, Easter's and Valentines I did not once register for a virtual gift. A one word micro blog didn't keep you out of Middle Eastern Prison. An e-card didn't salvage your relationship. It made it worse. 'Congratulations on your engagement, here's that hash tag you've been eyeing up for weeks...and you thought we hadn't noticed.' Why should a baby, without the capacity to think for it's self have it first moments splashed all over our newsfeeds? Or worse, why should a baby have a newsfeed?

The idea that the first thought that came into Kevin Jonas head after the birth of his baby girl was 'sheeeeet, Twitter needs to know about this.' is just damn right depressing. Not content with fooling us into believing that we have a social life, Facebook and Twitter have now fooled us into believing that we are not alive unless we are live online.

In August Kevin teased his followers, kindly pointing out to us that he and his lady friend know the sex of their own baby. HOLY MOLEY. The parents know the sex of their unborn child!? Shut the front door Siri! Stop the press! Call The Midwife! Button down the hatchet! And you could know too. But, here's the hitch: to find out the sex of the baby fans had to download the Jonas Brother's app. Their marketing team were high fiving their way to the bank, jumping on the back of what is supposed to be a private FAMILY moment. A moment surrounded by balloons and cuddly toys, not emoticons and voice notes.



And yes I confess, I was indeed one of hundreds of thousands hooked to their iPhones watching the live coverage of the Royal Baby's grand reveal. But I am British, we love a royal. And a street party. It would be sacrilege if we didn't. Like not reading Harry Potter, saying no to a cup of tea and peeing alone on a girls night out...it's all grounds for deportation.

And, I am aware that I am not addressing the real dangers of social media as we know it. There are downsides to everything, possibly more immediate than Kevin Jonas and his redundancy from The Purity Ring. We all know of the dark side to Farmville. Addiction, spam, a false sense of maternal responsibility. I mean, there's probably even more vegetarians now.

But, there are just some things that are best kept off our screens. Something as delicate as the intimate details of your daughters birth, is one of them. I don't know about you but the idea of 6million people knowing the precise moment of my contractions, chanting 'breathe, breathe, breathe' in unison, is not up there on my list of things to do before I die. What's next, a very public sweepstake to note the exact date and time of her first period? A reality show to auction off her virginity? Dear God, no.



For now, let's use Twitter for was it was invented for...witty one-liners about how many chicken nuggets we ate before dawn #YOLO, and subtle stalking.

B xx
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