In the sixties counterculture the phrase "turn on, tune in, drop out" was coined as a way to urge people to embrace cultural changes through the use of psychedelics and by detaching themselves from the existing conventions and hierarchies in society.

"Turn on" meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. "Tune in" meant interact harmoniously with the world around you - externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. "Drop out" suggested an active, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. "Drop Out" meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. (Timothy Leary from his book Flashbacks).

Leary proclaimed: the "PC is the LSD of the 1990s" and reworked the catchphrase "turn on, tune in, drop out" to read: "turn on, boot up, jack-in". This was to suggest joining the cyberdelic counterculture.

Even though Timothy Leary is no longer with us, it would appear that his suggestion in the 90's to join the cyberdelic counterculture definitely had an impact on us domestically and globally. I would say that it has moved from the fringe element to the mainstream as we become more and more 'wired' by the day. We are not content to just have home computer systems; we find we have an ever increasing need to be connected no matter where we are (is it really necessary to post on Facebook while one is in the toilet?). Just as a drug addict needs more drugs, we crave more gigabytes. Now we are texting on 'smart' phones, emailing and streaming movies on ipads and other devices too numerous to mention. Our language skills are almost non-existent and our writing skills even worse. A crib sheet is needed in order to decode what one is saying to you in a text message.

Example of text speak: i12cu = I want to see you, cu l8r k? = See you later, ok?, 10s ne1? = Tennis anyone?

Abbreviations for words: 8 = Ate (or sounds like 8), L8R = Later, Y = Why, 4VR = Forever, M = Am, YER = Your, you're, N = An, and, B4 = Before, M8 = Mate, boy or girl friend, CUZ = Because, NE = Any

These are only a few of the thousands of derivations or should I say out-and-out bastardizations of the English language. Writers from Shakespeare to Hemingway are rolling over in their graves knowing that our once beautiful and poetic language is being reduced to bits and bytes of cyber gobbledy gook.

"#undernocircumstances shud sum1 feel its ok 2 tlk lik this. You have 140 characters. Use them and stop typing like you're illiterate." ~@Lord_Voldemort7

It would seem that we have invented an alien form of mass communication that has humans all but speaking in algorithms. It truly boggles the mind how quickly we have adapted to this new linguistic shorthand and physically isolating form of social behavior.

Internet: absolute communication, absolute isolation. ~Paul Carvel

One can sit and converse globally in one's skivvies and bunny slippers if one chooses to do so. It is all about being wirelessly wired and taking cyber trips instead of meeting and greeting people in a physical setting.

At least in Leary's day (back in the good old 60's) people were in an actual social setting to do their turning on, tuning in and dropping out. Granted they were also dropping acid, but none of this was done in isolation. (Those who trip together stick together).

Nowadays I see entire families dining in restaurants and all have their iPhones out and are either reading emails or texting. One would presume the whole point of their dining out together would be so that they could actually talk to one another. Conversation is rapidly becoming a lost art. Kids sitting right next to one another will still communicate by text.

Leary was at least for expanding the mind unlike today's technology, which is contributing to the shrinking of our verbal and written skills, not to mention our sense of boundaries. What is it about cyberspace that compels people to do a mental striptease and allow every thought in their head to spill out onto the screen? Then become shocked and dismayed when this results in what they deem to be a breach of privacy.

Information on the Internet is subject to the same rules and regulations as conversation at a bar. ~George Lundberg

One really should approach what one chooses to place in cyberspace very carefully, because once out there it cannot be taken back. If you think hitting delete is the final act of removing unwanted information, think again my friend. Whatever abyss virtual information is excommunicated to it can always be retrieved by some very resourceful IT nerd. It's a lot like blood at a crime scene; there is always a trace no matter how hard you scrub.

You can't take something off the Internet - it's like taking pee out of a pool. ~Author Unknown

Then there is the little matter of unfettered access on the information highway and that means that every nut bag, with their head wrapped in tinfoil, sitting at their computers has access to you. Oh buddy, there is an assortment of mixed nuts out there and they live and breathe cyber air; this is right in their wheelhouse.

Everyone from the Aryan Brotherhood to those who have been taken aboard spaceships and subjected to probes, (which might explain the Aryan Brotherhood) is blogging and generally spreading the virtual 'word' according to their 'Zagnut' gray matter.

Warning: the Internet may contain traces of nuts. ~Author Unknown

If all this is not overwhelming enough, we have to contend with ever changing software programs. Updates seem to come with the regularity of ticks on a farm animal and they multiply just as quickly. Always, and I mean always, there is the inevitable glitch that one must face.

I think these updates are being created so that snotty, antisocial individuals can be employed to run software helpdesks. Where else can they collect a regular paycheck for being condescending and surly?

"I regularly read Internet user groups filled with messages from people trying to solve software incompatibility problems that, in terms of complexity, make the U.S. Tax Code look like Dr. Seuss." ~Dave Barry

The long and short of this is that 'Facebook' is here to stay ... Ugh! The most inane social site ever created by Man. I mean couldn't these techie brains have come up with a better premise than encouraging people to inform the cyber world of what they had for dinner last night?

I know I am basically sticking my tongue out at the holy grail of social networks, but good lord how can people subordinate their intellect to the point of engaging in this mindless activity.

Finally, I will leave you with a couple of quotes that nicely sum up the internet.

"Every bit of software wants you to be "social." Whatever happened to being grumpy and alone in your writer's fugue?" ~Doug Green

"The trouble with the Internet is that it's replacing masturbation as a leisure activity." ~Patrick Murray

Happy surfing my cyber friends!