Oh, to be judged just as one likes!

Amidst the bacterial proliferation of trends, studies, trivia and updates generated by assorted forms of social media, one could possibly conclude that some are of the firmly unicellular variety. Not that any offence is meant to algae or fungi and suchlike, rather, one is referring to a certain predilection for retardation of the mental variety. This can be most easily, for instance, evinced in people supremely confident that a visit to the hairdresser or the local mall is of such import that it needs necessarily be shared with everyone possible.

At which point, of course, gender inequality is prone to rear its ugly head and the performing of a similar activity, dutifully transmitted to the world, is bound to garner effusive praise and attention or be quite ignored depending on whether it is done by a female or a male.

Another aspect of such baffling behaviour seems to be people or veritable universities coming out with data deemed to be of epiphanic proportions. According to Cambridge University’s Psychometrics Centre, for instance, one’s Facebook ‘likes’ can reveal ‘intimate details and personality traits’. This means liking a link to, say, a Cuban cigar brand or a certain politician can reveal you are a smoker or of that politician’s ideological persuasion. One may duly be awed. Or snort in derision. Which, again, will reveal much.