For instance, many a time I have used arnica to hasten the demise of a bad bruise. ‘Nonsense’ he would no doubt claim. Likewise, half my friends believe in reiki – one is a practitioner of it. I know for sure Ben doesn’t believe in this, as per an entry on his site. The thing is, when his opinion differs from mine, Goldacre will have a valid point, very much backed up by facts.

Take the benefits of organic food, for instance. Last year he wrote against the benefits of organic food, following a couple of negative reports from the Food Standards Agency which caused outrage amongst the organic food producers. Again, you can read his response on his blog. If I’d solely read his article, I’d have been outraged myself; but having heard various supporters of organic produce I was more annoyed at them. Instead of agreeing that there is no definitive way to prove, right now, that organic food is healthier than that reliant on pesticides and insecticides, the producers tried to defend their position without much real evidence.  Had they been more astute, they would simply have emphasised that, surely, the point of organic food is to make things better for Nature. The benefits to humankind come in the long-run, with a healthier planet.

Arguments against genetically modified foods are equally difficult to sustain – although I’m not so sure there is sufficient evidence for or against this technology just yet, no matter what people say. Some advocates of GMOs – here and here, for example – are fairly persuasive, whilst the case against GMOs is not always so cogently presented. It is often along the lines of ‘stop the Frankenstein crops!’ and without any facts to back up such concerns.

Thankfully, the likes of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Avaaz are calling for more scientific trials to prove the technology whilst also campaigning from the angle that the bio-tech industry is very much led by companies eager to exploit the poorer or less-developed nations around the world. Cries from those companies of ‘you’re stopping us from helping the starving’ don’t quite ring true, especially when, as a whole, we are already growing more than enough to feed the global population – it’s just that a disproportionate amount of food is going to waste or to feed livestock so we can eat meat.

So whilst I feel uncomfortable at emotive expressions about Frankenstein crops, I do believe strongly there is a need for better, more open trials concerning GM crops; and more importantly, I don’t want companies like Monsanto walking over the poorer nations, such that their scarce resources are unnecessarily spent on expensive GMOs. That’s why I signed the Avaaz petition calling on the European Union to place a moratorium on the introduction of GM crops into Europe.

If a miracle does occur and those transparent and independent trials take place, I’ll happily go with the results. I am not anti progress; I am not anti technology. Indeed, given the will and the resources I believe most of our current troubles – pollution, disease, climate change  – could be resolved by technology and international co-operation. But I do not put my trust in big corporations or governments will ever willingly sort things out unless there are big profits to be made. That’s why I’m happier to trust my own judgement. Even if it does mean believing in the powers of arnica.

People in the UK spent over 500% more time on Facebook last year than in 2007. And apparently, the average office worker gets interrupted every 3 minutes. That’s a scary thought. Yet…  

Thackeray wrote 15 letters every morning and I guess he spent the afternoon writing Vanity Fair rather than updating his Facebook profile, but it has to be said – that’s a lot of writing and not working.

Similarly, Henry James had more than 1000 correspondents. How long were his letters? He wrote plenty of novels, suggesting his average letter was in the region of, oh, 140 characters? Perhaps Stephen Fry is closer to Henry James than Oscar Wilde?

Although I’m in danger of harking back to my previous post and sounding like a Luddite,  we do have to be aware of how social networking sites could potentially lead to an overload of information and, paradoxically, the trivialisation of news, facts and unique ideas which are all open to drowning amidst the mediocre. Just as we now surf tens or hundreds of digital TV channels only to end up watching BBC, ITV or Channel 4, how easy would it be to miss out on true quality or originality on the Internet when there are so many millions of sites?

To finish, an interesting aside. In a previous edition of The Observer, John Naughton suggested that teenagers cannot see the point of Twitter and, instead, it’s adults that form the bulk of its user population. I wonder if Twitter have published statistics on when the heaviest usage is. My guess? The working day.