I'm No Twit

I must be into a routine with my blogging as I didn't notice the third anniversary of this blog pass by on 11 January.

I'm not averse to modern technology and new fads even if my participation is a beat or two behind the advance guard. I was a Facebook addict for all of three weeks some years ago but my addiction quickly dissolved under the weight of mindless email updates, a flood of compete stranger friend requests and countless unwanted pokes that the network generated. I left my account open for a while but then thought better of it and privatised it, or whatever their technical term for making it go invisible is, after I realised that the mechanisms for removing the account altogether were deliberately made impossible for mere mortals like myself to achieve.

I also tried the next must have accessory...a Twitter account. This seemed like a good idea at the time if only because you couldn't post an item of more than 140 characters (including spaces) thus providing less of a literary challenge to me to produce an interesting item for publication. At least, that's what I thought. As I soon realised, the minimalist restriction in fact made it more difficult to produce interesting comments. Flowery language and lengthy metaphors disappear ignominiously at character number 141 no matter how profound the thought.

More to the point I went into a state of mental paralysis as I tried to think of something...anything...witty or interesting enough to publish in 140 characters or less to the universe at large. As a consequence my Tweets quickly dried up. There were only so many times I could Tweet about the weather or where I was coming/going or what I was eating/drinking before I felt less like a Tweet and decidedly more of a Twit.

Despite this paucity of quality Tweeting I managed a small...very small...list of followers although tellingly almost to a person each follower only emerged after I had started to follow them. Tweeters are certainly considerate and polite in this aspect apparently not willing to hurt my feelings by resisting what surely would be the tiniest of urges to be the automatic recipient of my once in a blue moon puerile pronouncements.

One Blogger/Tweeter I am a follower of works in the media. I enjoy his blogging and whilst his Tweets are less of interest to me I found once in a while a useful announcement from him about some or other radio broadcast. Unfortunately because I rarely checked in on Twitter-land I was discovering these interesting Tweets too late to catch the broadcast. What to do? Fortuitously..or was it?...I discovered the facility to receive Tweets on my mobile and so I linked said Blogger/Tweeter's Tweets to my phone. This seemed a good idea...for a while. Certainly, I was now receiving said Blogger/Tweeter's Tweets - (aside; is this starting to read like an elocution lesson?) - in a timely manner including the occasional broadcast announcements and verily this was good. Unfortunately I was also receiving his less interesting (to me) Tweets in just as timely a manner and verily this was bad especially as I had not figured on us having different lifestyle habits; that is, I was in bed trying to be fast asleep as my phone beeped his latest missive at 1am, 2am and occasionally almost 3am. Sadly, I disconnected said (good Internet mate) Blogger/Tweeter from my mobile but at least I still have my daily read of his Blog to keep me going.

Whilst my Tweet inadequacies are glaringly obvious to anyone who comes across my account other Tweeters are clearly going gangbusters. One interesting aspect of Twitter for me is how one account opens up gateways to countless other accounts and a casual trip along the Tweet alleyways reveals an entire universe of fascinating publishers. Their accounts are so colourful to the eye with an endless array of personalised styles and layouts. Most of the Tweets are incomprehensible to me but their pronouncements scroll on page after page in a dizzying exchange within their community of Tweeters.

How much time must some of them spend in Twitter-land? One Tweeter I came across this morning was sending messages out at a rate of every two minutes almost everyone of which was a comment on some other Tweeter's Tweet. How does he do it? He must read a host of other Tweets all the while responding to them as he does so. There was no indication that he stops for meals, a rest or even, for goodness sake, toilet breaks.

No, that's not for me. I'm not a twit.