Twitter is so dumb, isn’t it? You publicly say these most inane things and then other people say inane things and it’s all inanity, here, there and everywhere.
Kind of reminds me of my addiction:
it’s not just that when I’m with others, I - ugh! - participate in destructive social rituals like caring what people are saying. Even when I’m alone, kind thoughts about other people invade my consciousness. I feel an impulse to wonder what they’re thinking and what matters to them. I try to focus on computing pi or to remember the 1955 Dodgers starting lineup, but I just can’t shut out those images and feelings.
Sometimes - and I’m so ashamed to admit this - I use the Internet to sate these shameful urges.
I love Twitter in its decoupledness and ordinariness. I love it because it puts no demands on me. I love it because I know that Leisa didn’t get to sign up for BarCamp London and Steve missed out on the social computing keynote at LotusSphere and Ken is writing a book. I wouldn’t know these things except for Twitter. It makes the web worker life so much more real and so much more human for me. Clearly I need to write this up on Web Worker Daily–”Seventeen Reasons to Use Twitter.”
When you’re a web worker, you’re detached from your coworkers… you don’t go out regularly for lunch with them… you don’t walk past any other cubicles on the way to your office… you don’t get to talk about the big and little things that are happening to them and to you. You miss out on the texture of people’s days. And you don’t get to share your own.
Judi wrote about ambient video awareness on Web Worker Daily, and I kind of like that idea, but I think I like better the ambient awareness that Twitter gives me. It’s lightweight, non-intrusive, but still delightful.
If there were five people I’d want to start twittering, who would they be? My dad, my two sisters, Judi, and Om.
If you want to follow my inanities on Twitter, here I am.
4 Comments
ooh, i agree. I’m a complete Twitter convert. I really resisted Twitter for a long time thinking that it was utterly inane and distracting… and sometimes it is that! But I really love the ambient presence that people have in your life as a result of Twitter… and particularly those people who you might not know so well otherwise.
I’m still bummed re: BarCamp tho’. It must have sold out within hours. That can’t bode well for diversity of population (which was a big talking point at the last Bar Camp.)
Thanks a lot, Anne. I hadn’t seen Twitter yet - so much for any productivity in the next week.
I haven’t been this voyeuristically fascinated since I first found Grouphug. (For those who haven’t seen it, check out: http://www.grouphug.us )
I haven’t tried Grouphug. Sounds interesting, thanks, Mike!
Totally Agree Anne. So much so that when I wrote about Twitter I said it brings telepathy to the web