My Blog! My Blog!

It's been at least a year since I started (occasionally) using Twitter, and since then my thoughts about it have changed considerably.

Originally, I thought it was a stupid idea.

Now, I have mixed feelings about it. I've concluded that Twitter can be very useful. For one thing, it's great for quick, emergency communication (both between individuals, and as a channel for public interest messages). It can be used as a mechanism to summon "flash" crowds for all kinds of purposes. It comes in handy for people who want to send a message but don't have access to a computer (because you can access Twitter with a cellphone or Blackberry) and can't make a phone call (such as in a movie theater during the movie).

But as a way of keeping up with my friends, it lacks a certain something. Since they started using Twitter, I've seen fewer e-mails blog posts from certain friends of mine; now they keep up with me, and I with them, primarily through tweets.

In some ways, I now know more about what they're doing day-to-day, rather than less. But I feel less connected to them, somehow. It's as though my tweeting friends were roommates with different schedules from mine, whose activities I find out about through indirect evidence (like piles of laundry appearing, or outgoing mail and vehicles disappearing, from time to time).

Don't get me wrong; I don't intend to stop tweeting. I'd rather be in touch with my friends than not. But there's something that is both oddly impersonal and a bit *too* personal about Twitter, and I can't really put my finger on what it is or why it bothers me.