The New Rules

(No, nothing about calling at least three days ahead. Actually useful stuff.)

We’ve discussed that I, as a geek, read Wired. But what we haven’t discussed is how much I’m in love with the August issue.

Although I don’t like the cover. One of my best friends was with me when I got my mail and said, “who is that?”, witnessing with a despairing shake of the head both my ignorance and this cover’s badness.

Because the cover is Brad Pitt. Inexplicably fake-sweaty and furrowed-browed and bare-chested in a leather jacket, gold necklace, goatee and Bluetooth headset. (Maybe in Inglourious Basterds he plays a vaguely skeezy and confused Best Buy shopper? I don’t know. It’s Tarantino.)

Anyway. Inside the issue is the point. Inside the issue is How to Behave: The New Rules for Highly Evolved Humans. A Scientific Approach to 21st Century Predicaments. It’s a how-to list for everything social-media-ish. My favorites include:

• Never broadcast your relationship status.
• Don’t blog or tweet anything that has more than half a million hits.*
• Meet online friends in the real world. (Warning: it will be weird.)

And best yet: Don’t work all the time. You’ll live to regret it.

Go read the article; you’ll adore it. And honestly, if everyone followed these rules, there would be almost nothing to complain about in terms of people and technology.**

As a bonus, the online article has extra goodies in the “Torrent” section that aren’t in the print article.

Required reading. Scoot.

* I realize I am being semi-hypocritical on this point since I’m talking about this article a couple weeks late.

** This is not entirely true. My dad would still call back every cell phone call that doesn’t leave a message.