Is Tweeting for Twits?

If you’re old enough to remember when a typewriter was the only word-processing tool available beyond pad and pen, keep reading… In the Fall of 1983, I attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI) in Blacksburg, Virginia as a Computer Science major. Blacksburg is a college town and VPI is its crown jewel. VPI’s campus is inviting, its people friendly, its library—with sprawling caverns of couches and study areas—is fabulous, and it’s one of those places where form follows function. I never thought I’d own a pair of those “hideous” duck shoes VPI natives were so fond of…and then it started raining. One walk across the quad soaked my Nikes to an unrecoverable state, and gave me reason enough to assimilate. But I digress… My experience at VPI made me recall a professor—I’ll call him Prof. Smith here—who was none-too-fond of modern technology.

Prof. Smith was a stout and crotchety fellow, much like Ed Asner on the Mary Tyler Moore show back in the day. When the original IBM PC/XT was released he swore he’d cling to his typewriter forever, and that he would count himself among the “lost” in the new millennium as technology evolved to bring us so many “useful” products and services. Useful products like…You know…like the Snuggie. Just thinking about Prof. Smith’s staunch attitude makes me smile today and reminds me of the Star Trek movie scene where Mr. Scott is attempting to speak into a PC mouse, “Computer… …Computer! ,” and then, frustrated, he begins typing rapidly as he’d recognized that “old” Earth’s primitive technology had not yet evolved to where voice recognition fully replaced conventional input devices. Mr. Smith and Mr. Scott, I salute you, for today I am feeling age creep upon me as I ponder the newest craze in modern technology (a.k.a. Web 2.0). Taking center stage in my theatre of annoyance: Twitter.

Twitter is to Blogging what a postcard is in comparison to an average letter. Twitter is a micro-Blog. “Tweeting” is a reference to Twitter’s function that allows people to communicate to other people in snippets of 140 characters or less. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS), or other external applications. The service is free to use over the Internet, but using SMS may incur mobile phone service provider fees from your carrier. Are people who tweet twits? That depends on who you ask. Ask me, however, and I’ll tell you I’m leaning heavily in the direction of the affirmative.

If Mark Twain were alive today, I definitely think he would have a Blog, but I don’t think he’d tweet. Ditto for Shakespeare and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The novelty and the problem with tweeting is that anyone can do it. And therein lies the problem. It doesn’t take much intelligence to tweet! It’s bad enough that students are submitting papers with “LOL” in their prose and genuinely expect their professors to “get it.”
Sample Tweet: “I’m now eating dinner [Blah Blah Blah]”…

Does anyone really need to know (or care) of such minutiae? I feel much like Prof. Smith when I think about the uselessness of Twitter. Not to my surprise, there are plenty of folks who disagree. Still, it’s my own belief that tweeters are simply using Twitter to further their own personal brands. Serena Williams, Shaquille O’Neal, Dwight Howard all tweet. The LPGA is actually encouraging its players to tweet between golf holes on the tour! Larry King, Tila Tequila, Carson daily, Ashton Kutcher, Alyssa Milano, and MC Hammer also tweet. In the interest of research only, I can confirm to you that none of them had anything interesting, fresh, or remotely significant to say.

Conclusion? Frankly, if you follow people who are famous (or otherwise), who really have nothing substantial to say, then you’ve got way too much time on your hands! Do yourself a favor instead and go outside, read a book, work out in a gym, or volunteer in your community. Leave the tweeting to those for whom it’s intended: narcissistic, self-promoting people with nothing to say.
Is Tweeting is for Twits?
[In the voice of Marv Albert]: “YES!!!”
‘Nough Said,
+THINKR