unshakeable visibility

We are fortunate to be the first generation to never lose touch - with anyone, EVER.

From our earliest childhood friends to our latest work pals, even if connections have been severed by time or by circumstance, the internet can pretty much locate them by one way or another.

For me, first to emerge was Friends Reunited, the website to locate mates from primary school, secondary school or college (for a small fee). I stayed off it for a long time - enjoying my invisibility - but inevitably joined up for a year to see who was around.

The disadvantage, I discovered, was that those who registered in previous years but had let their membership lapse, would never receive your messages. Besides, all the hot chics kept to themselves! note to wife: this is a joke ;p

The power of Google also delivers some decent results - however, worldwide there are so many people with the same name you have to trawl hundreds of non-entities

I googled the name of a bass player in my band from 10 years ago and up came his name, job and phone numbers. We'd lost touch but luckily he happenend to have a job where his contact details were posted. After a tentative email we resumed communication like the decade between chats was just yesterday.

The biggest phenomena for "re-connecting" has to be Facebook, it has the advantage of being free while also allowing the "piggy-backing" of friends to other friends. For me, a person on the other side of the world to most of my friends, it has the feel of a life-line and my friends can know what I'm up to without expensive phone calls or impersonal group emails.

Facebook, Bebo, myspace, et al. There are many benefits from this social networking. But what are the implications of this sort of permanent visibility?

In the UK, divorce rates and marriage breakdowns increased when old flames brought together by Friends Reunited rekindled their relationships.

We are warned that identity thieves can net information like your DOB by hacking Facebook, (which is not on a secure connection) and lifting it from your profile details.

And what about those people who you used to know but weren't really mates. What category to they go in, do you "add to friends" or not?

Or the place that you worked but left because it sucked, or perhaps you got fired and don't want to see any of them ever again. Is that even possible: to never see or hear from certain people again?

Not replying to messaging and emails is one option, being computer-less is an unlikely second, but really in this age of permanent connectedness, people know people who know you.

So friends of friends who may be enemies to you will always be able to find out what you're doing. That might bother you.