I don't know if it's something in the pixels or if the constant flow of friend requests are finally getting to some people but in the last week I've heard some of the most insane stories about bullshit people have pulled on social networking sites. And by bullshit I mostly mean people doing things online and then being surprised when other people find out about them. I'm actually kind of impressed by the level of ignorance going on, and thought you might be too. Here are a few situations I've heard about this week, all of which are entirely true. Names, of course, have been changed to protect the guilty.

Jack is dating Jill. Seriously. Like, a serious "committed" relationship. Jill isn't online as much as Jack but decides to check out his MySpace profile one day. This profile is full to the brim with photos of and notes too / from other girls that Jack is apparently hooking up with on a regular basis. Jill is obviously upset by this and confronts Jack. Jack denies it. Jill pulls up his profile right in front of him. His reaction - "oh, um... yeah." Jack is no longer dating Jill.

Thomas knows about Susan, but doesn't like her. He makes several posts on his MySpace blog about what a whore he thinks she is. Susan does not really know Thomas so doesn't read these posts. Thomas meets Susan in person and has a problem, she's totally cute. Thomas takes tons of photos of him and her together at a party and posts the photos to his Facebook profile, seemingly to prove that he has actually talked to cute girls before. Thomas tags Susan in the photos. She finds them and follows the links back to his MySpace page and sees everything he's written about her. Thomas is shocked, SHOCKED when he asks Susan out and she says No.

I don't even know what to say about this except... really? Someone actually thinks this is at all entertaining?

Tina and Laura have been hooking up pretty regularly. Laura invites Tina to do something one evening and Tina declines saying she can't because her job has her working extra hours and she can't do anything except that for the next week or two. That evening rolls around and Laura starts getting tweets from Tina about a great party she's at. A little shocked, Laura sends Tina a text message asking what she's up to. Tina responds saying she's still at work and will talk to Laura later, then sends one to twitter saying "just got txt from old girlfriend while hanging out with new one... awkward!"

Jeff meets Katrina at a party. Katrina tells Jeff about her ex-boyfriend Louis. Louis is her ex-boyfriend because Katrina caught him getting busy with his coworker Janet. And by getting busy I mean having sex. Jeff is sympathetic and understanding. Katrina and Jeff leave the party together and one thing leads to another. And by one thing leads to another I mean they have sex. The next day Katrina finds Jeff on MySpace and leaves him a cute, flirty comment. Then clicks on his photos, where she finds several photos of him with Louis, and some with Louis and Janet. At their office. Where they all work together.

Mike and Ted are friends with Steven and Francis. Steven and Francis get in some stupid tiff with Ted and then Mike and Ted decide to no longer be friends with them. Mike is especially vocal about not liking Steven and Francis anymore because of what happened with them and Ted. Ted is psyched that Mike has his back. Months later Mike makes up with Steven and Francis and starts hanging out with them again but tells all his friends not to let Ted know. Mikes friends feel uncomfortable but keep their mouths shut. Steven however isn't so quite, and posts photos of them all hanging out on his Flickr account. Mike doesn't know this, but all his friends do, and are just waiting for that bomb to blow up.

So what I'm wondering, is when did people all the sudden forget that when they put things online, other people can see them. And if you have a secret, putting it online isn't the best way to keep it a secret. Did everyone simultaneously suffer head injuries? Are other people seeing this kind of thing or have I just found a patch of online idiots this week?

This week I'm writing in from the SG Tokyo field office on an all expense paid trip to research the future of communication and global interconnectivity. OK, that's not entirely the truth, I am in Japan but that's about where the line to fiction starts blurring. A guy can dream can't he? Actually I am kind of researching communication but with a much more "how the crap do I stay in touch with my friends" approach rather than the "what does the future hold" perspective. Turns out it's both easier and harder than I expected.

If you've been following my columns here you know I'm kind of obsessed with communication to begin with and during ordinary daily life in Los Angeles I prefer IM and SMS to the phone, but would rather get a call then an e-mail. In planning this trip I knew a good bit of that was going to be thrown into an uproar, but was also excited to see what tools people I'd be hanging out with in Japan were using and how they were using them. Everyone I talked to prior to the trip said renting a mobile phone from a kiosk at the airport upon arrival was essential, so I assumed the bulk of contact would be SMS based and arranged for a phone to use during my trip.



Additionally I was curious how I'd stay in touch with my friends in the states. I've also got a friend from LA who is in Thailand right now and thanks T-Mobile she has free SMS coverage there which made contacting her from LA no problem, but a bit trickier from Japan where it's no longer a local number to send or receive from. How would all this play out?

Not surprisingly some contact forms didn't change at all, minor time zone differences aside. I could IM and e-mail with people the same as always. Site messaging (like mail here on SG) also worked the same as always and was really helpful. Voice to the states wasn't that tricky so long as I had a laptop thanks to several VOIP options. For a very small per minute fee I can use things like Gizmo Project or Skype to call any phone number on the planet. I can also sent SMS messages with Skype to US numbers for about $0.12 each, but people can't reply back to those. Both of those services also let you make calls to other people using them for free. You can also flex your inner nerd with gaming options like Teamspeak if you already use that, but I wouldn't recommend trying to set it up just for a trip.



As for in country communication, it's not SMS at all. In fact no one I know here is using SMS for anything. This doesn't mean they aren't using their mobile phones, they are - all the time actually - but instead all messaging is e-mails (or mobile mail) directly to the phones. This seems to skirt some kind of high SMS charge in some way. This is amusing actually because originally SMS gained popularity in many countries because it was much cheaper than voice calls. Interestingly enough nanoblogging service Twitter is benefiting here as well because of the mobile and direct messaging options. You can't use SMS for it, but you can use your mobile phone's browser and send direct messages through twitter to friends here in Japan (or anywhere in the world) for free. Several people I've talked to are doing this, as well as just keeping an eye on the mobile page to see where their friends are. Twitter actually solved the issue for my friend in Thailand. While it's not as direct as an SMS that she can reply to her from Los Angeles, we can still keep in touch easily and basically for free.

This is the trick, almost every single person I've seen has a phone, and it's usually out in being held in one hand and stared at. People on the trains, people on the streets, everyone. Conversely, I can probably count on one hand the number of people I've seen talking on their phones, and I'm including myself in that number. To add to that, there are signs everywhere prohibiting you from talking on your phone, so much of the text based mobile usage might stem from that as well. There are also pay phone booths everywhere but I haven't seen a single one being used yet which is certainly tied into the mobile aspect. If people aren't using their mobile phones to talk on, who might someone call from a pay phone? I've heard these are slowly disappearing as well, much the way they are in the US.



What does all this mean? It just means the way we communicate with each other, those next to us and on the other side of the world, is constantly evolving. I can't wait to see where we go next from here.