PatJsy

That plus a baggage thrower (handler) when I'm at home

Not wearing a helmet is not cool but neither is trying to force others to do so. Helmets are a personal preference albeit it you're definitely better off wearing one. About the video - I think my new year's resolution will be to learn those backwards nose wheelies!

Reminded me of this

I never bothered deleting people, I'd just unfollow everyone except a few close friends. For me it was a case of going on it and just browsing through it for 10-15 minutes a couple times a day which in total was a pretty significant waste of time each day. I'll have to check when I started this thread but I'm pretty sure it's close to 2 weeks ago now and I couldn't see why I'd want to go back to it. Even if you think it's good to have it I'd encourage you to get off it for a week and see how you feel. I can almost guarantee you'll become much more productive and you're not going to miss it. Same goes for watching TV, playing xbox or whatever really. I know you get bored without these things and they're there for your entertainment but I think it's fair to say people are becoming too reliant on them. The minute you get bored you grab your ipad, ps3 or what not and don't bother thinking of other things you could do instead...

This is probably the best reply I've had so far here, good to hear there's others realising it's not necessary for anything. I definitely agree with how people are becoming addicted to technology enabling them to connect with all their friends at any point during the day and it's getting to the point where you're physically with a group of friends but are interacting with other people online instead... Also agree with being more social and productive, I've found the same thing within hours of getting off it. You get this whole time period each day where normally you'd be on your pc but now need something else to do. At first I called it boredom but now I see it's an opportunity to get more out of each day. I found that checking my facebook a few times a day was the main reason I fired up my laptop in the first place. Now I'll check my e-mails and a few BMX sites once or twice a day and it takes no longer than 5-10 minutes. When I get really bored I watch stuff on youtube or chat sh*t on here but even then I don't spend anywhere near as much time on the internet. Oh, unrelated but I'll do my best to come to Bristol for a weekend when I'm back on the mainland next month. I'll be in touch with Rob anyway but it'd be cool to meet up and ride if you're free Ben!

At a time when BMX is getting more and more (I don't want to be politically incorrect and use the "g" word but that's pretty much all I can think of), riders doing either gymnastics inspired ramp moves or grinding tiny ledges and calling that street it's refreshing to see a video like this. The FBM guys always have and always will make riding a little bike look rad as f*ck! http://vimeo.com/82406729

Eastern Europeans have a tendency to always try to be better than others, it's a really common trait. I've seen it growing up there and I still see it with foreign workers here. People are definitely not the same, the culture you're surrounded by hugely affects the person you become. So if you hitting someone at 40 won't kill them, does that make it acceptable? Nope, you're still an idiot putting other peoples' lives at risk. Last point is probably my favourite - how do you judge when you've become good enough to the point you're no longer a risk to others? If you were any good at it you'd be doing it for a living and even then you'd be off the roads. I stand by what I said, people who put others' lives at risk are idiots

That says it all really... Are you honestly comparing riding a bicycle to purposely losing control of a car capable of instantly killing pedestrians? You're not very bright mate

Fine if you do it on a track but wannabe fast and furious type people are a bunch of idiots. If you ride a bike in a public place then there's a tiny chance you can hurt a pedestrian, if you're doing that stuff, no matter how good you think you are you can always spin out and kill someone.

Not quite, Taiwanese tourist in Australia

Do you reckon she posted a status whilst in the water? "Just fell off a pier and am about to drown LOL FML YOLO" On a serious note - how dumb can you be?!

Won't be long until people start putting airbags on their babies in case the fall off a swing or something...

Very true, can't really think of a good response haha I think there are two types of idiots in the world. Those who preach about God and those who preach about there being no God. Somewhere in the middle are people like myself who don't give a f*ck either way, I just thought it'd be a nice metaphor that people can easily understand. You should have stopped being a slacker and visited sooner Nah I really do agree with your point but personally I thought the benefits of no longer wasting time on it (once again this is purely talking about myself, not everyone that uses it) outweighed the drawbacks of no longer being able to contact people easily. Was this aimed at me or the other guy? It's my second although I've lived in the UK for a while now

I don't have a tv or a radio so that's easy... The point you've been missing the entire time is that people communicated over distances for years and years but it's always been a pain in the ass and no good alternative to meeting in person. With facebook connecting so much of the population not only can you contact whoever whenever but depending on how much they choose to share you can pretty much see what they've been up to in the past weeks, months or years. The point I'm trying to make is that 10 years ago, you could phone your mate and see what they got up to but you'd still go and see them in person to see the new car they bought or whatever - now you just look at the facebook/instagram picture they posted of it and you're sorted... I think it's getting to easy to contact people and share things with them now.

God this brings back awful memories of GCSE English lessons...

I get what you mean but I think it's a pretty natural human thing to brag about stuff, some do it more than others and facebook provides a great platform for people to broadcast it to a large audience. I live with a couple of friends and quite often we won't see each other for a few days at a time. The next time I see whoever I've not seen for a few days we'll normally talk about what each of us got up to. I'd bring up a movie I watched that I think they might enjoy, the new trick I learnt and other random things I did such as getting rid of my facebook account which these days is a pretty big deal seeing as the norm is to have one... Of course you get the people take the piss with it and clog up your news feed with stories of amazing adventures they got up to which quite often are a load of exaggerated bollocks and a lame attempt to seem cooler amongst friends. In my case here, I thought it'd be a good place to tell people about it as I knew it'd probably lead to some debate and indeed it has, you've only got to read some of peoples' previous arguments for proof. Plus it might even lead to someone doing the same thing which would only be a positive.

It's like opening a pack of M&Ms and telling yourself you'll stop halfway... I know I'm capable of it but 99% of the time I'll just eat the whole lot. Same principle. Can't wait for some wise ass to criticise this metaphor or whatever it is as well...

I think what happened was someone he was friends with dropped him in and I think he's even deleted the post but they still managed to get all his history from facebook. I guess when you're a big company and you ask facebook for info they'll just hand it over... As for the other point, it's true you can't bump into people from far away but it makes it that little bit more special when you visit them I guess? I don't really want to argue with that point though as I completely agree. It's going to be a pain in the ass to arrange little trips etc, I'll probably end up getting hold of people via other peoples' facebooks haha I think getting back the time I'd waste just scrolling through it all every day outweighs the benefits of staying easily connected though but that's just because I used to waste a lot of time on it.

A friend of mine got suspended from work for calling a manager a c*nt on facebook... Apparently the company has a division that regularly checks the employees accounts for whatever reason although I'm not sure if that's true or even legal

I used to be a big fan of MSN a few years ago, thought I'd throw this out there... Wish someone came up with a new, trendy version that everyone started using. I know you've got facebook chat but with MSN you actually had to physically ask people for their addresses so you had no pointless people on it but could still contact all your mates easily

haha I'll make sure to put more thought into my next one...

I do but we developed the ability to speak to each other over short distances rather than from two sides of the world... I don't even know why I'm bothering to explain this, I was just trying to illustrate a point there...

Although it's shit that it happened it's good that it happened after he's finished filming!

Bloody hell wasn't expecting such a debate! I think I pretty much agree with just about every argument made so far, there's no hiding the fact that like Mark said it's an invaluable way of staying connected but I think if God wanted us to interact with each other from a distance he'd have made us telepathic... Yes it's great to be able to stay in touch with friends from far away but at the same time I love bumping into people I've not seen or spoken to in a few years - you can have a proper good catch up and hear what they've been up to in person. As for deleting friends or unfollowing people - it was the last thing I attempted before getting rid of it altogether. I'd only see posts from my closest friends plus a few decent pages I've liked. My problem was that when bored I'd still go through random friends' profiles just to see what they've been up to. Both creepy and unproductive... I'm sure there are many people who only go on it to message friends but I'm just not that disciplined - if it's there in front of me I'd just get on it and click through random pages for hours some evenings. Anyway, nearly 48 hours clean now

Amen That really annoys me, I've never used it on a phone but going out with people and seeing them with their eyes glued to the screens gets on my tits ha Fair play, you didn't miss much! haha haha yes I did, I thought it might be an interesting topic to put out there though