Twitter doesn't interest me. Do I need to tweet that?

Since I have two blogs, a web site, several laptops, and an iPhone, I keep wondering why Twitter hasn't tweaked my interest.

Everybody seems to be twittering, or "tweeting," these days. Well, nobody that I actually know. But I've been reading about The Twittering Class.

Which makes me wonder, should I join the Twittergentsia? I don't want to be left out of a cool social movement, especially when it involves technology. So I tried to convince myself that I needed to start tweeting.

First stop: a couple of important people's Twitter pages. First impression: yawn.

John McCain has over 254,000 followers of his tweets. I can't see why.

Ditto with George Stephanopoulos' Twitter page. The only tweet that seemed to have any interesting content was mostly incomprehensible. This isn't going to replace a New York Times story:

Early read on Geithner plan from plugged in investment source asset managers he knows just won't play until sure WH can control Congress

I then journeyed to Twitter itself, seeking to learn its mysteries from the source of all things Twitterish.

Not surprisingly (given Twitter's limit of 140 characters on tweets), I found conciseness under "Why?"

Why? Because even basic updates are meaningful to family members, friends, or colleagues—especially when they’re timely.

Eating soup? Research shows that moms want to know.
Running late to a meeting? Your co–workers might find that useful.
Partying? Your friends may want to join you.

Well, my mother is dead. I'm retired. And this sixty year-old's idea of a party is a hot bath, the latest issue of People magazine, and a glass of wine. I'd invite people to join me, but it's a small bathtub.

Here's my main problem warming up to Twitter: clicking on the main page's "Watch a video!" link led me to this bit of questionable philosophy.

Real life happens in between blogs and emails

Hmmmm. For one thing, I don't like this putdown of blogging and emailing, both of which I do a lot of. I feel that these are very much part of my "real life."

And I'm not convinced that adding Twitter tweets to my other electronic communications would enhance the real life that, presumably, I'd be telling people about.

Mark Morford had a clever column recently, "I Twitter for you!
Too old/busy/jaded to 'social network,' but still want to seem hip? Call now!"

Allow me introduce you to my groundbreaking new company, Geekamania.com. I created it to meet the needs of smart but also slightly bewildered, overwhelmed, angry, out-of-touch, nervous or otherwise increasingly irrelevant people, just like you!

The concept is very simple. Who needs Facebook and MySpace and the like? You do! But who the hell has time for such pathetic digital hoo-ha nonsense when there's dishes to be washed and gardening to be done and kids to be driven around and thorny little roses to be stopped at and smelled? No one!

That's where Geekamania comes in. Let us do the annoying but necessary-evil social networking crapola for you! For a small monthly fee, we'll keep you connected and relevant, even vaguely respectable/marginally noticeable to the jaded, spiteful, easily distracted ADHD youth of today, whether you think you want to be or not. It couldn't be easier!

Quite a few years ago, before all this social networking stuff became fashionable, I used to visit the Governor's Cup coffeehouse in Salem fairly often.

Almost every time I'd go there, I'd see the same group of people ensconced in a prime seating area near the front windows. Not all of the kaffeeklatsch'ers would be present every day, of course, but some of the regulars seemed to be full time Governor's Cup inhabitants.

After a while I began to wonder what they talked about. If you have a life outside of a coffee house, then you can share stories about it over an expresso.

But if most of your life involves talking about your life, won't there come a time when you run out of outside stories and all there is to say is something about the saying you've been doing?

So I'm going to pass on Twitter for now. Maybe, for ever. The dog is bugging me to go for a walk.

If I had a Twitter page, I could put up a tweet whenever she did that: "Dog is bugging me to go for a walk." 

Does anyone care?

And wouldn't I eventually end up saying stuff like, "Now I'm thinking about putting up a tweet about the dog bugging me to go for a walk"? Probably followed by, "I'm wondering if I'm putting too much time into thinking about putting up a tweet about the dog bugging me to go for a walk."

Hell with it. I'm going for a walk.

Comments

[lavachickie]

But if most of your life involves talking about your life, won't there come a time when you run out of outside stories and all there is to say is something about the saying you've been doing?

I used to laugh that when I was busy doing interesting things, I blogged so much less. But I adjusted how/why I blogged, and as a result found space for it because I was doing interesting things I wanted to share.

I'm still ambivalent about Twitter; for some time it made no sense to me, but then I started to follow a small few, and started twitting myself. I find it annoying now that more people/organizations are just trying to use it as another method of advertising. I don't need that.

One key I've found to "doing" all the hot social networks is using other tools that do the hard work for you. I have it set up so that I change a status or send a twit, and it then updates all of those resources.

[Randy]

When asked if he had Twittered Stephen Colbert replied that he had "Twatted."

[Rain]

I have wondered about twitter too. I don't do it and do not read anybody's but hear a lot talk about doing it-- especially media and political types. Why would I care what they do all day? I can't imagine being interested in everything my friends either. I keep in touch with those who I do care about what they are doing through msn messenger which I enjoy but use less now than I used to. When I first had it, sometimes I'd have three conversations going at once. Now, I have maybe 18 contacts and might talk to one (not the same one) in a day but those few are important to me to keep in touch and discuss ideas. I don't see how twitter would do that. *drinking my first cup of coffee, does anybody care?*

[Lindsay]

I'm not really jumping on the twitter bandwagon yet but I did sign up to check it out. There's a way to update your facebook status and your twitter status at the same time...if you're interested. But again, what's the point? Minutia?

One thing about "tweeting" is it allows average people to be "citizen reporters". Often twitter breaks stories before the media can. Although I think this is really the exception and not the rule.

Also, the reason for the 140 character limit is because that is the maximum size for text messages. So you can text to update your twitter.

p.s. I came across your blog via a google search. I've enjoyed it so far :)

[Brian]

Lindsay, your comment came in just before I started to write another post where I shamelessly admit to having opened a Twitter account:
http://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2009/03/oh-my-god-im-twittering.html

Thanks for explaining the reason for the 140 character limit. I didn't know that. Since I lean toward verbosity (actually, I wallow in it), I figure it will be good for me to keep my keyboard clicks to 140 or less.

Follow me! I need followers! (If you start tweeting, I'll become your follower.) Click:
http://twitter.com/oregonbrian