Dominic George: Hacking risks I can't bare it

Hacked photos of a naked Jennifer Lawrence have provoked an online furore. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Farmers are far too busy to get involved in frittering away time on social media

The hacked photos of a naked Jennifer Lawrence and other celebs this week has provided wonderful stimulation of the senses for many around the globe - me included.

If it wasn't illegal to publish them, rest assured I would be turning them into a photo gallery for farmingshow.com to sit neatly alongside my Farming Pics gallery and my Women of the 2014 US Tennis Open gallery.

I'm a bit-player in the world of social media. I've only ever posted anything in a work capacity and even then I'm a reluctant participant. There are a range of reasons for this, most of them concerning time and inclination, both of which I have very little. The beauty of this, of course, is I keep myself to myself and occasionally those around me whom I choose to make privy to my mediocre existence. I cook almost every night, I go to parties, I go to events, to work, the gym, I watch my kids play sport and I have pets and yet I've never once felt compelled to tell the world about any of it.

Much like the bloke in last week's column, the poor chap who becomes apoplectic with rage when he doesn't snap the perfect photograph of a grandchild blowing out birthday candles, I see people who feel compelled to share everything they do. From lunch to location, from sunrise to fornication, it's all captured and it's nearly always accessible.

Yes, naturally, those photos shouldn't have been hacked, but they were. In much the same way as those genius AFL players were taken to task over dressing up as Rolf Harris and a "girl" for their Mad Monday p ***-up, the claim of privacy in the age we live in is so absurd I despair for the future of the human race.

I've long maintained if I was in charge of public relations and media for a sports team, I would ban all social media. You don't like it when you can't post a video of your latest sexual conquest? Tough luck. Oh, poor little Johnny Dropkick wants to dress up as Joseph Fritzl at a private function and show the world? Not on my watch, pal. Yes, the minority would ruin it for the majority again, but it's been proven time and again that footballers in any code can't be trusted with the medium.

And that's what I admire about New Zealand's farming community. How many times do you see an instagram photo of some cocky repairing a fence, a tweet telling people how hard it was having to move a few kilometres of K-line to irrigate a high country block, or a Facebook post showing what they're having for lunch? Virtually never. And the reason? They're too bloody busy working.

Comedian Ricky Gervais was lambasted this week for some friendly advice he dished out to his fellow celebrities. "Celebrities, make it harder for hackers to get nude pics of you from your computer", he wrote, "by not putting nude pics of yourself on your computer." The fact he was roundly ridiculed for his comments just proves how banal the world has become.

Legendary blues guitarist Robert Johnson reputedly sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads to gain unlimited guitar prowess. It seems the trade-off for our rapidly expanding technological advances has come at the cost of common sense. Just goes to show you don't get something for nothing ... except some great photo galleries at farmingshow.com.