Several weeks ago I wrote an article called "Facebook-ing Ourselves to Death" in which I analyzed the philosophical underpinnings of the social media. The title was a variation on the book Entertaining Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman. The purpose of Postman's title was the claim that we are slowly and subtly losing our humanity to the hypnotic nature of the television. We essentially replace reality with entertainment in a manner not altogether different than the elective coma experience in Huxley's Brave New World. Television has become our "soma". My overarching criticism of the Facebook platform was essentially the same, that we are slowly replacing the realty of the human person and human relationships with a technological counterfeit. In an article from yesterday's Associated Press, it seems that my title was not only appropriate but also quite a bit more literal than I originally intended. This is truly tragic.
Baby killed after interrupting mom's Facebook time
By Associated Press
POSTED: 03:35 p.m. EDT, Oct 28, 2010
JACKSONVILLE, Fla.: A north Florida mother has pleaded guilty to shaking her baby to death after the boy's crying interrupted her game on Facebook.
Alexandra V. Tobias pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on Wednesday and remains jailed.
The Florida Times-Union reports that she told investigators she was angered because the boy was crying while she was playing the game FarmVille.
The paper also reports that she told investigators she shook the boy, smoked a cigarette to compose herself and then shook him again.
She will be sentenced in December. State guidelines call for 25 to 50 years, but a prosecutor said it could be shorter than that.
A telephone message and an e-mail sent by The Associated Press to her attorney weren't immediately returned.
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