Facehooked

A new survey out today reveals a couple of boring facts and one interesting fact. The boring facts are that we're addicted to coffee and chocolate.....sounds like my better half (sorry dear). The interesting fact is that the UK is actually "addicted" to Facebook. Facebook is one of the top three addictions cited in a recent survey conducted by the Living Channel to promote the launch of their new show, Rehab. Plug done.

Now, we knew it, didn't we? I think there's something very English about this fact and if we look at the type of behaviour that typified our parents and grandparents, there's probably a lot of similarities about the way we interact on Facebook - check it out:

• Checking your news feed, but never updating your status = Watching your neighbours from behind the net curtains
• Regularly updating your status but not checking what anyone else was doing = Mrs Bucket visiting her long suffering neighbours
• Direct messages between two people about a third = Going round Ivy's for a cup of tea, a cake and a gossip about Dora down the road

All joking aside, when surveys like this come out it's about time for people to accept the importance of the medium, in this case Facebook. With such a large proportion of the population on Facebook representing everyone from the average housewife to politicians, isn't it in fact the place to be? I think so.

MyTake - Next time someone asks "what's the point of Facebook" you can tell them "the same as coffee and chocolate". Sarcasm aside, social networking is just going to get bigger and bigger and will eventually represent a huge percentage of our interaction with each other. Throw in our English eccentricities and you've got a recipe for success.

They tried to make me go to Wiihab….

There appears to be no stopping the juggernaut that is the Nintendo Wii – gaming machine, fitness machine, training machine for surgeons and now….rehab machine. The Wii’s popularity continues to extend at a scorching pace with its latest accolade being in the field of rehab therapy for patients recovering from stokes, broken bones surgery and even combat injuries.

According to the experts, some traditional therapy exercises can be repetitive dull and painful. Playing on the Wii engrosses the patient to the point where they can become totally oblivious to the exercise they are actually doing while playing.

Dr Osborn of Southern Illinois Healthcare, one of the hospitals using the Wii as part of its rehab therapy said. "In the Wii system, because it's kind of a game format, it does create this kind of inner competitiveness. Even though you may be boxing or playing tennis against some figure on the screen, it's amazing how many of our patients want to beat their opponent …. When people can refocus their attention from the tediousness of the physical task, oftentimes they do much better."

MyTake – Score for the Wii, the world is clearly loving this machine. When it launched it had its critics and while it’s not a giant leap forward, I’d say it’s probably a giant leap side wards in thinking – its taken gaming in a whole new direction and this is what innovation is about. There’s something ever so slightly fitting in the fact you wave the wiimote around like a wand…… something magical you might say.