Mangled, twisted, expiring bits

In 2013, bits and their aggregates, the bytes, words and DWords (that would be compounds for you Germans) have suffered more than in the previous years.

Twisted and mangled beyond recognition, they litter the worldwide web. Innumerable bits which looked sound, healthy at the beginning of the year, met an early demise in the second half of 2013.

Concepts and statements carefully crafted by highly educated and well regarded people imploded or blew up in our faces. The remains of once strong and shiny metaphors dot the mental landscapes, abandoned like unwanted toddler toys. But there are no adults doing the cleanup.

The old days of carefree surfing in the sunshine of the internet are over. We have been conditioned to watch out for the sharks, who would appear out of the deep dark, we had been warned of pollution, had looked on as government officials closed off "dangerous" stretches of beaches based on unscientific criteria.

Newbies who carefully dipped their motherboards in the shallow waters on the warm beach were afraid of sharks and stinging creatures, afraid of the bullies one sand castle over.

We believed the happy, smiling life guards in their white towers were scouring the open water to keep us safe. Of course, we knew that some of the life guards would use their binoculars to check out some T & A, but it was harmless fun.

Most of us had no idea that the bulldozers and armed guards had assembled behind the dunes, that most of "dangerous" beaches were not dangerous but wonderful locations for gated communities, with the plans for condos having been filed and quietly approved a long time ago.

Time to be the adults our parents only pretended to be.

Bits, the God particles of social media cohesion, may be less attractive to you if you happened to cross the magic Western age threshold from 29 years to 30 this year. But it is going to be fine.

We want you back, said the title of an email not long ago.

Who has never craved to receive an email that says we want you back, or I want you back?

The visceral, emotional appeal of "we want you back" works as intended. You open the email despite seeing that the sender is the healthcare provider you had in a long forgotten other life. Health insurance starting at 495 dollars. Yeah, you jokers.

We won't ask the healthcare provider to stop emailing us. In fact, this is what gave us the idea to be a bit more open minded and create some email accounts to collect more invaluable reminders and updates from other sites.

It is also healthier to not fret and stress about unwanted email.

Or about the lifeguards in their white towers -- they will be fat, disillusioned middle aged men sooner than they realize.