Monday evening I hosted the latest cafe scientifique, this month with Meg Pickard of guardian.co.uk. The topic was about social networking and whether sites such as twitter and facebook make us more or less social. An interesting discussion, with a good range of people from Internet-aware teenagers to Internet-phobic older contributors. I came away from the event with two main memories: first that the nice idea that even silly and seemingly pointless communication is useful social bonding and community-forming. Second, that during our coffee break instead of the audience doing the normal rush to the bar and chatting, we had a room full of people tapping into mobile phones. Hmmm! (Many did chat afterwards however.)

The audio should be made available online soon. The site is here:

http://www.rigb.org/contentControl? action=displayEvent&id=898

We also had a live twitter photo produced by a member of the audience just before we began. (I think I am hidden behind the bald head at the front of the room.)

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