Thing 12: Twitter

Twitter is fun to follow, but can certainly become TMI (too much information) quickly. I am really not interested in where my friends are having lunch, for example, or that they are working out and have just spent 20 minutes on the elliptical machine. When I see those tweets it makes me nuts because I think people spend so much time in the media already-- can’t you just stay in the moment throughout your workout or your lunch? Do you have to be connected to your electronic devices through every stage of your day? Really?

On the other hand, I do like to see photos of their kids, or cool stuff they encountered, of pics of relatives, etc. Like on FB many pastors use twitter to keep their peeps up to date with their tweets.

I joined twitter a while ago actually, to follow a pastor who was doing an activity that caused him to be in a place that might have been dangerous. I wanted to make sure he was okay, so signed up to follow him. I followed him by logging in to Twitter-- not on my phone. Because I have a twitter account, random people have also tried to follow me, but since I didn’t know, them, I blocked them. I think it's creepy to follow people you do not know. I also think it’s creepy to follow celebrities (although to others that may be the same as following a pastor!) Since I do not receive email or tweets on my phone (too much involvement for me--email and FB are enough social networking for me...if someone needs me badly enough they already have my cell phone number). I have seen many people mash up FB and twitter, and I have enjoyed that. But is gets me wondering: are we spreading ourselves too thin? How much info is too much? How many platforms are too many? How much do we really need to know through twitter? What about face to face meetings?

In fact, I saw an advertisement in a magazine (a tech magazine called Wired, actually) for American Airlines. It talked about doing business in person and how more business can get done that way. The power of face to face meetings and conversations cannot be discounted. Although all this electronic media and networking is helpful and useful, at what point will it become ANTI-SOCIAL networking because it removes the human touch, the human voice, and the human reaction?

p.s. the last time I saw Twitter referred to what in my email inbox when a friend decided to follow me, even though I do not tweet!