Twittering Away

So, in order to understand this new phenomenon, I have joined twitter. I just recently got into FaceBook, and this reminds me of the status update feature (Kasey is getting ready for work or making coffee or about to walk the dog.) I have grown accustomed to facebook, but I’m incredibly slow in updating my status. I suppose I don’t feel I need to alert all my friends that I’m watching bad TV or shopping online.

Check out this very helpful video that summarizes it.

According to our other good friend, Wikipedia, twitter has significant uses for certain news industries and colleges. BBC is using it to disseminate breaking news. This is extraordinarily powerful when people have the application on their phone. People can get news no matter where they are. Also, colleges are using it as a way to get information out to everyone. Think how different the Virginia Tech. incident would have been if they had used this application. I was in undergrad when the 9/11 incident happened. I caught the beginning of it on the news as I was leaving for class. Class was not canceled, so I (and everyone else with a 9:30 class) had no idea what had transpired in the last hour until I reached a TV around 11:00. Technology is bringing everything current to people’s fingertips, and twitter is most definitely not the only application that provides this- and probably not even close to the most reliable one. However, I have an instinct that the primary and most popular use for twitter is a way to stay connected to friends from everywhere.

CBS had a segment about the explosive popularity of twitter and it’s use in elections. The correspondent came to the ultimate conclusion toward the end that there is such a thing as too much knowledge of what people are doing.

I’ve been on twitter for less than 20 minutes, and I’m already not doing so well. It can’t find any of my contacts from email because of multiple errors, and it has told me that it’s over capacity, twice. “Too many tweets,” it says. So, as it stands now, I prefer facebook. How many websites should I have to search to find out what someone is doing only to discover that it’s not that interesting. Don’t get me wrong- I think technology that connects people and makes the world seem smaller and more… sharable is great. However, what I have a difficult time getting on board with are systems that make it easier and easier to isolate oneself from neighbors, friends, or colleagues. I wonder if twitter is bringing us down that road. Perhaps I would feel differently if I had some friends on it….

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