Talking to people.

I was reading about an app called Somebody. If I understood it correctly, the idea is you tell the app that you want to send a message to somebody in a specific location. The app then locates another Somebody app user in the vicinity of your would-be recipient and that person locates your recipient and passes on your message verbally. Now, in this modern age when almost everyone, apart from a few total refuseniks, has a mobile, an iPad with messenger and any number of gadgets which will accept email, why would you need such an app? Supposedly to encourage strangers to talk to each other. 

If fact, I suspect that it's somebody's attempt to make money out of getting people to buy yet another app that they don't need. I wonder if, like the various health apps you can buy which measure how many steps you have walked today, how much exercise you have had, how many calories you have consumed and what your body mass index is, this app sells on your data to advertisers so that they can target you. If you send a message expressing your undying love for someone, will you be bombarded with adverts for florists, jewellers and other such purveyors of gifts for your loved one. Although why you would send your message of love via the Somebody app totally defeats me. The recipient of your message might prefer the messenger to you! 

No, instead of buying an app to make us talk to strangers, perhaps I should start a campaign of talking to strangers at bus stops and in lifts, in queues at the bank or in shops. I already talk to all these people anyway. But to make it more pro-active, I would need to explain to the people I speak to that they in turn should speak to a stranger in such a situation, explaining the campaign and passing the message on. It would be rather like the passing on of helpful favours in the novel "Pay it forward" or the system they have in some cafes where you pay for your own coffee and one more, so that a stranger coming in gets a free coffee. Presumably in the end, if that last system works, you eventually get a free coffee somewhere. 

In any case, I have always thought that doing favours and generally being nice to people works that way. If you are nice to someone, eventually the niceness makes its way back to you. (Incidentally, autocorrect just changed "niceness" into "iciness". Is the computer trying to tell me something?) If you smile at people, they feel better and are more likely to smile at others. The world becomes a happier place. Or at least there are more smiles around. 

Okay, that's that out of the way. Now I just need to stop the tap dripping in the kitchen and all will be well.