Twitter and Me

Don't know whether Twitter is above, below, behind, around or through my pay grade or interest level, but I can honestly say there are few things I find a more boring or monumental waste of time. Try as I might, I can fathom only one or two tiny applications that might be of even passing---passing---interest to me: First, if someone I love or care about is on a trip and is Twittering their journey from a cell phone (but can't that be done several other ways?), and second, if someone is being held hostage at gun point and able to Twitter their incarceration or rescue, as in Captain Mark Phillip's recent drama with pirates in the Gulf of Aden.

While I'm sure there are always exceptions, overall I think people with good-to-great online sites are diluting themselves by using the separate entity of Twitter. But we live in a time of diluting ourselves, our money, our time and talents, don't we?

If this is the new over-caffeinated face of the internet, count me out. Evidently I'm not alone in this either, as about 60% of new users abandon use (not sure if that's posting or reading, or both) within a month of starting, according to Nielsen Online. Actually, that is encouraging news as I hope people have better things to do than spend a lot of time on Twitter.

I guess the big draw is for teenies to Twitter their great narcissistic heroes like Ashton Kutcher and be aware of his latest moves. It gives them a false sense of actually being in contact with him. But it's an illusion. How sad for his one million followers.

I'll keep trying a little longer to go to a few sites on Twitter, but for now, there's no chance of extending my addiction to the web at this service. In fact if anything, it lessens my overall in interest in the really good sites. Too much of a anything tends to make me want much less of it. Much less.

We are overcome and drowning in ignominious facts and way too much silly stuff, while starving for real substance and depth. I count on the really good online sites to glean the best of the best to write about, analyze and link to sparingly, and try to do the same here on a small scale. Other than that, Twitter and its ilk simply create a background noise that, like mosquitoes, needs to be exterminated and fled from.

Twitter is the greasy, cheap, fast food of the web and I gave up fast foods, except in dire emergencies, decades ago. And I'm not going back now.