Brolga Bill's Internet (with appologies to Banjo Paterson)

Twas Brolga Bill from Bangalow that caught the Facebook craze.
He'd put aside his postie bike and freed up all his days
to practice his guitar so one day he could make a splash
reaching for his dreams of stardom filled with groupies, drugs and cash,
but after days of practicing guitar for hours on end
he felt a pall of tedium beginning to descend.
'I need a break' he muttered, grabbing coffee and a scone,
then sitting at the computer he reached out and switched it on.

Now a computer is a useful tool when used productively
for paying bills, or looking up a film we'd like to see.
It has a million uses and the internet as well
provides a window on the world and lets us buy and sell
our goods, or learn the latest news, but as I'll shortly show,
there are dangers lurking on the net, but not those that we know
from news reports and such, like scams and kiddy porn,
no, more subtle traps and snares are there. Against these now I warn.

For Brolga Bill had heard of something, idly chatting to a mate,
a social network site his friend had said was really great.
So he fired up his browser then and googled what he'd heard
and found his way to Facebook, the site to which his mate referred.
He filled in the form and registered with confidence and ease,
and found that setting up a profile page was just a breeze.
He located friends and family and invited them to be
his Facebook Friends and they had every reason to agree.

Now, for the first few weeks there was no reason for alarm.
He traded news and posted pictures, what could be the harm
in logging on occasionally and checking on his friends.
That would be fine but that is not quite where the story ends,
and one day soon he noticed that a friend had done a quiz,
and posted the results for all to see, and seeing this,
he'd started on the slippery slope and for a bit of fun
he tried the quiz himself, of course, now the trouble had begun.
One Facebook quiz is harmless, takes hardly any time at all
but when you've finished one then many others seem to call
for your attention and you see that there are many, many more,
and you seem to spend more time each day than on the day before.

A few days later came from someone that he hardly knew
a strange request to join him in some sort of pirate crew.
He clicked 'accept' but just to see what sort of game this was
but had to play at least an hour or two because
he'd always harboured secretly a wish to sail the sea
as captain of a pirate ship at least in fantasy.
He plundered and he fought and he looted pirate gold
then he found he'd gained a level but to do better he was told
that he would need to much increase his pirate crew
so he sent invitations flying as the game had told him to,
and he pressured all his children to sign up so they could play
and eventually he found that he was busy all the day.

He had to log in every day to play the pirate game
and noticed listed up above some others of the same
broad structure but with a different style
like Mafia Wars and Vampires so in just a little while
to fill in time while waiting for his energy to fill
in Pirates he began another game until
he had a whole parade of games that in order to progress
he had to play each twice a day, I think you probably guess
the end result. Yes Brolga Bill was spending each day glued
to his computer, nothing else was let intrude.

His guitar was left to gather dust, his dream went by the board,
his family gave up in disgust at being quite ignored
and move off up to Brisbane to begin another life
but Bill, he hardly noticed he no longer had a wife
and children for he lived to be the Facebook Pirate King
and Mafia Boss and Vampire Lord, the best at everything,
until one day the power was cut, the bill had not been paid
and all his savings somehow managed to have been mislaid.
Deprived of daily internet he saw what he'd become,
a sort of Facebook zombie, and he felt like such a bum,
that he joined a local twelve step group of others just like him
and confessed to his addiction, which allowed him to begin
to learn to live again in the world we know is real.
Let's hope he makes it, now to you the moral I'll reveal.

That while the internet can give us hours of harmless fun,
if we forget just what's important we may be the one
who loses everything that once we held so dear
and when they turn the power off we might just disappear
and live on, off in cyberspace, in constant pointless round
of silly games and quizzes and we never will be found.
So by all means play on facebook or whatever site appeals
but remember what's important and however good it feels
to be a star on facebook is a very trivial aim
log off and hug your family and forget about the game!