Why is Big Brother such a big deal, here’s my suggestion for one cause. Back in the good old days there was such a thing as community and part of that was what became known as garden wall chats.

Ok I don’t really go for all that community stuff; a community is a group of individuals, the workings of the group is a matter out of anyone’s control.
The demise of the garden wall chats is however a well recorded passing. The garden wall chat was essentially gossip between neighbours. The growing isolation that we keep our selves in today now keeping much smaller and tighter company than we previously did has meant such conversation has been starved of substance to maintain it.

Perhaps in reaction to this we have turned to creating a virtual world from which the gossip can derive. No longer knowing about Mr Smith’s (from down the road) affair with Mrs Jones (across the road) we instead get to gossip about Charley’s latest bust up with pretty much anyone else in the house.