Friday Philosophy – Should I Be a Twit?

Something I have been pondering for a while now is should I join in with the “happening crowd” and sign up to Twitter? I know, I’m two or three years behind the times on this, but more and more people who I like have signed up – even Doug Burns now uses twitter and he used to be negative about it in the same way as I. I’ve asked a few of these friends what they think.

I’ve always resisted the whole micro-blogging world, probably due to the comments made by people about how much dross is tweeted and what a time sink it can be, something the people I asked all mentioned. And partly, being candid, because I know one of my faults is to shoot my mouth off before engaging my brain, especially if annoyed. If it takes 20 seconds to do a tweet, I shudder to think some of the things I might have put out there in the heat of the moment or when in the pub. Pub talk is fine, so long as it is kept in the pub. With a blog, it takes me so long to write them I tend to calm down before sending, if I am angry.

Also, tweets are not my style. I don’t know if you have noticed but I can be a little verbose {this means I spout several sentences where 5 words would do}. Can I be succinct enough to say anything anyone else would want to read?

That’s the writing of tweets, what about the following? I could just be a passive follower. But how many? This is part of the advice given to me by Neil Chandler and also Doug, to only follow a few people so that you do not just drown in an endless feed of stuff. I guess that anything good gets re-tweeted and so you see stuff not just by those you follow but the best bits of what they follow? Neil also suggested that part of what makes twitter work is joining in, don’t just be passive.

Something about Twitter that does bug me a lot, and this is just part of the whole texting/smartphone/constant communication thing of modern life, is when people you are spending social time with just sit staring at their bloody phone. I just find that really rude and I also think it’s a bit depressing when you see three or four people in the pub or restaurant, all staring at their smartphones and not communicating with each other. You might as well stay in bed. Alone. {Oh good grief what a terrible thought! Do couples who do social media now just sit in bed with their phones in front of them, ignoring their supposed love of their life?}

But of course there are advantages to Twitter. There is a lot of interesting stuff that goes on only in the twitter world and some of the tweets I have seen have been hilarious. It’s far more lightweight than blogging, something you can do in a quiet moment. Though Doug suggests this is why you get so much dross about travelling, people catch up on twitter when bored and also tweet then. Niall Litchfield made a very interesting point to me in that it allows you to keep up on a large range of topics and see new ideas and thoughts more. I like that. In fact, Niall sent me an excellent list of reasons for and against, which I’ll {almost} finish on.

From Niall:

*************

Reasons for :

– I get vicarious updates from a large number of sources on a large number of subjects. (Oracle,SQL,Science,Politics)
– It can suit my short and acerbic style from time to time.
– More people are doing it
– It indirectly promotes me (albeit with a somewhat misleading image)
– I find stuff I wouldn’t otherwise have found
– I have engaged with product managers I probably wouldn’t have done

Reasons not:
– time wasting
– addictive
– it promotes me in a misleading way
– it can annoy others

I like it because I’m an information junkie and like to keep abreast of stuff in several areas. It can be a colossal waste of time and irritate immensely.

*************

I think I might well give it a go and that leads to my last thought. If I am going to enter the world of twitter, I am going to have to get a new phone. My current one is so basic that it does little more than just make and receive calls. But a single charge lasts a week.