"Social Media" Turns Geezers Into Tweeners

I HATE "social media" - the FaceBooks, the Selfies, Twitter et al.   I thought it was just because I felt and still do that the lower you can position yourself below the radar, the better off you are. 

Examples:  my first "author photo" was a pair of black suede driving moccasins.  A friend commented sardonically, "Doesn't really look like 'you.'"
I ran a Cabo photo and identified the trio as "Tourists."  The people that know us know it was me, Richie and Raffish.

Jump now to a rather febrile novel I was reading when I came across this passage. I said, "Ah hah!   Now I get it"

A man is complaining to his ex-girlfriend.  "When you and I communicate, I want to do it directly.  You write to me; I write to you.  You ask questions and I answer them.  You stop getting news of me from third parties.

"Those judgments - "Like"  "Don't like"  Smiles"   "Frowns" and" OMG you've  UNFRIENDED me?"  We were doing that in junior high school.  The world has dorkified itself."

The man continues, "I mean I can't send you e-mails because you immediately forward them to someone else.  I can't send you a photo because you instantly post it on your own profile."

Exactly so.  By virtue of spending vast swaths of time online people are losing the ability, let alone desire, to spend time one on one.  Woman at a bar to her date, "Hold on - I've got to get this."  A half hour passes and the date shakes his head and stands up  to leave and, genuinely surprised,  she says, "Oh!  Are you leaving?" 

By splatterdashing all you know on a continual effort "to share" we are actually turning into a world of loners.  Not good.  Worse - turning our grandparents into tweeners.  They've done their time!