How Facebook and Twitter fuel idiocy, by John Humphrys
FOR regular listeners to the Today programme, it will come as little surprise that John Humphrys loathes social media.
Now the veteran broadcaster has revealed the depth of his contempt, lambasting Facebook and the ‘utterly pointless’ Twitter for fuelling ‘idiocies’.
In words that will strike a chord with many, the 72-yearold said he cannot understand why users feel the need to post constant updates on their every thought and movement.
‘I do not do Facebook or Twitter,’ he said in an interview with Radio Times.
‘I am anti the sort of idiocies that Twitter frequently produces and baffled by people who feel they’ve got to be telling everybody what they’re doing all the time.
‘If I want to hear what ordinary people think then I will talk to them in a pub. Twitter is utterly pointless.’ In his dislike of social media, Humphrys has an unlikely ally in former Sex Pistols singer Johnny Rotten.
The one-time punk told Q magazine: ‘Social media is a very, very silly thing. I think it’s evil, the way people anonymously poke their noses into other people’s private lives.
‘Who’s sh****** who is no business of mine. I suppose it’s some kind of subterfuge for people who don’t have sex lives of their own so deal with it vicariously through the shenanigans of others. And that’s very dismal indeed.
‘ It’s like you’re depriving yourself of your own existence, and there’s a system called social media that’s helping you do that.’
Humphrys, despite his dislike of social media, is no Luddite when it comes to modern technology, saying that he is a convert to e-books which he enjoys reading on his iPad. He said: ‘I prefer to read on the iPad now. Open a book and it wants to close all the time; the iPad just sits there, very satisfying.
‘John Simpson gave me a Victorian reading stand, a sort of lectern on wheels I can pull up when I’m sitting in an easy chair with my iPad on, though I must have more than 1,000 books.’ The Welsh broadcaster said that he runs every day to keep fit, but also stays in shape by using a standing desk. I have a stand-up desk. Sitting down is the new smoking apparently,’ he said. ‘I spend the whole day rolling around the place. Apart from sitting down to eat.’
He added: ‘I’m very happy to have a pint in the evening, but I like bitter, not that abomination lager. I used to drink a lot when I was a kid but I’m past the stage where the purpose of drinking is getting drunk.’
The host of BBC2 quiz Mastermind also claimed that he could largely do without a television, and misses programmes he does like because presenting Today means he has early bedtimes.
Asked what programme he couldn’ t miss, he said: ‘Almost nothing. With the exception of the utterly brilliant Mastermind, I could manage without television completely.
‘ The best telly is on later in the evening and I go to bed at halfpast eight.’
‘I prefer to read on an iPad now’