Twitter is the latest cool internet Web 2.0 thing. Everyone’s a-twitter for Twitter, “a global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?” Using Twitter is reportedly as addicting as sugar-infused crack cocaine laced with nicotine. A general rule: When something is this addicting, it is stupid.
I do see potential value in technology that enables public messaging on multiple interfaces (the Web, IM, and mobile phones), and I think Twitter-like services will evolve into something functionally useful in wider society. But as it is used now, Twitter does not impress me. In fact, since I’m an old codger, I find a bulk of the banal chatter that Twitter emits to be morally repugnant and symptomatic of an ideologically-diseased world.
Twitter nurtures three increasing tendencies of today’s technocrats: exhibitionism, voyeurism, and the proclivity to express oneself in easily-digestible factoids of 140 characters or less. A vast majority of Twitters revolve around everyday minutiae. People who Twitter can’t complete a single life task without sending a broadcast to the world about it: Eating eggs and toast! Getting ready for spinning! Sitting on the train! Working at the office! Thinking about buying a new pair of sneakers! Blogging! I can’t imagine strangers caring about this, let alone my friends. Will they want to read Twitters about how I’m writing posts for this web site when most of them can’t even be bothered to read it?
Twitter is a tribute to our infinite vanity, our wanting to believe that the sands in our hourglass sparkle brighter, that they are not insignificant, that they will not be blown away and forgotten.
