Twitter

Note: If anyone reading this actually has a Twitter account, I mean you no offense. But seriously, light that thing on fire, run over it with a truck, send it through a trash compactor and then urinate upon the remains.

Unless you've been living in a cave in the mountains for the past couple of years, you likely know what "Twitter" is. Some would call it blogging in a far more concise, easily digested format. I personally would call it blogging for those with an attention-span measured in seconds, not minutes, or better yet, the Facebook status to the 10th power.

It's as clear on the nose on my face that I don't (or possibly can't) do short blog posts. It's possible that some of you may avoid reading my posts because of their length and that is your prerogative. You could say I treat each post as an essay - as opposed to an abstract - and I craft it as such. I'm the first to admit that blogging is a narcissistic endeavor and brings with it a certain arrogance, the arrogance that pervades all writing and all "art". A person enters the undertaking with a belief that their product is worth being consumed.

Pardon me while I go one an aside about the facebook status: the key here is that they cannot be avoided. Everytime you sign into Facebook you are greeted by a list statuses. With a blog, a book, a movie, album etc. the "consumer" has a choice. If I don't enjoy the music of Nickelback and I can do my part to avoid it. If someone has no interest in this blog, they don't have to visit it. Not so with the Facebook status. Better yet, very rarely is anything of any value conveyed in a Facebook status. It is presupposed that I, or any other user, cares that you want to take a nap, work on your dissertation, or eat at Steak & Shake. So it sucks that you have two tests this week - but broadcasting that fact and the oh so clever "FML" elicits little pity from me. You're bored? Congratulations. You're unhappy with the new Facebook? It would seem that Facebook's existence as both a free and voluntary service render your complaints absolutely pointless. Don't like it? Leave. I'll admit I usually have a status, one that rarely has a damn thing to do with what I'm actually doing, especially if what I'm doing is something quite mundane. You'll never find me telling my aggregated friends that "Matt is going to Target," or "
"Matt is taking one hellacious shit." In a perfect world my status would be entertaining or at least enlightening. That's my goal.

Anyway, back to Twitter. Twitter is essentially a collection of Facebook statuses into a mini blog. Twitter themselves describes the service as a way to let your friends, family, co-workers, and possibly the rest of the world know what you are doing ... at all times. There is a 140 character limit for all posts and functionality that lets you "tweet" back and forth with other members. To my mind it is the ultimate in hubris - it's akin to hiring a documentary crew to follow you all day and then expecting people to want to watch it. In text form of course. Shit, my life is boring and I'm pretty certain that (to me) most other people's are as well. It is rarely in the events of a life, but instead in the how those events are recounted, that value lies. Call me a hypocrite if you will but I see tweeting far differently from straieght up blogging. In a blog post their can be substance, humor, a story. A random thought can blossom. A tweet possesses all the nuance of an atom bomb.

I found on the Twitter homepage, this statement: "Twitter puts you in control and becomes a modern antidote to information overload." Yes, by allowing you to let every person you're familiar with know what you're doing at various times, and by allowing them to do the same, you are curing that dastardly poison of information overload. Seems more to me you're letting people feel that they're important. Better yet, you're indulging us in our already shrinking attention spans. I'm a product of my generation, with television and video games highly influencing how I interact with the world. We demand instant gratification. There are times I have trouble focusing, especially when it's something I have no interest. But I'll be goddamned if I need things I'm reading to be limited to 140 characters.

One of the ways they market this is as a way of keeping connected with your family. I bet my mother would love it if I had a twitter that let her know exactly when and what I was doing. To me that's a strike against, not a reason for.

Twitter is huge. Techies and mainstreamers alike love it. It's far hotter than conventional blogging. Everyone from pre-election Obama to current US Senators to college football coaches and the man off the street are using it. There are some I do like: those that are entirely fictional. This is a topic I'll gladly play the "luddite" on.