The Laboratory

Do you remember when you first joined social media? Maybe it was the dear departed Friends Reunited, and you spent ages messaging people you hadn't seen since you were 16. Or perhaps Facebook swept you up and now you have 400 friends and can't keep track of all your notifications. For Adam, it was joining Twitter in 2009, because some friends from the Jon Ronson forum had recommended it. And 9 years later, those friends as far away as Cardiff, Edinburgh and County Down are now people we have met in real life. Here are three of their Christmas photos. Kelliepie's new Christmas brooch: Maxnugget's hand-made front door wreath: Mistertumnus's funny tree decoration: Here's to more than another 9 years of friendship!

All the posts this week are guest-contributed by Twitter friends. First up, @mistertumnus talks about Christmas cards: On the whole I agree with this article by David Mitchell about the commercialisation of Christmas, and the tradition of sending Christmas cards in particular. It is too commercial and it is pointless to send cards and presents just for the sake of it, because you feel you have to. But the older I get the more I appreciate the excuse that the commercialisation creates for actual goodwill. I know, I know, you don't need an excuse, you could just send a card when you felt like it, to anyone. But, woolly lefty that I am, I know that I can't escape capitalism. We're not going to get to turn the clock back on this one. People are busy because of work and the busyness directly impacts how we socialise and for many people it's just a thought too weird to contemplate that you should send a card at a time outside that prescribed by Hallmark. You could ge...