I was having a conversation with someone last week about Twitter.  She didn’t understand the purpose of Twitter or why anyone would care what anyone else was doing every moment of every day.

The answer is, really, no one. 

Although the idea behind Twitter is to answer the question, “what are you doing?” in 140 characters or less, that’s not actually what most people use it for… at least that’s been my experience with the people I follow on Twitter.  Most of them share little blurbs about news, funny tidbits (Bossy doesn’t tweet often, but when she does, her blurbs are pretty amusing), or just general thoughts.  Some people tweet often.  Others, like me (I just realized I haven’t Twittered in five days), not so much.  I’ll admit, I’ve gotten rather bored with it (as evidenced by the fact that I need to update).  But, you know, there are plenty of substitutions.  There’s MySpace, LinkedIn, FaceBook, Friendster (not to mention Dogster and Catster), etc.

They all have their pros and cons, depending upon how you use them.  But, for the most part, they’re much more fun if you actually know the people you’re communicating with.  And by know, I don’t necessarily mean in person.  It depends on the site.  With Twitter, for example, because it’s rather superficial, I follow people I’ve never met and allow most anyone to follow me.  Other social media websites, however, provide more personal information and, therefore, many people don’t connect with people they don’t know personally.  It’s an individual thing, depending upon one’s level of comfort with the site and the people on that site.  

But, as with anything in life, you get out of it what you put into it.  If most of your friends/relatives are on MySpace, then you will probably prefer MySpace to another networking site, like FaceBook or Friendster.  If you’re more interested in professional networking, then LinkedIn or FaceBook will probably serve you better than Friendster, Myspace, or Twitter. 

Honestly, I wasn’t really into any of them until I got my iPhone.  But my iPhone has turned me from a semicybernerd to a full blown cybergeek.  Is that a bad thing?  Eh.  I don’t know.  I guess it depends on the day you ask me.  And whether or not I’m buried up to my neck in LinkedIn at the time.   

Thank heaven for small favors though…at least I’m not a cyber neomaxizoomdweebie.  Yet.

April 29th, 2009 | Category: Family, Friends, Humor, Internet | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL