To Tweet or not to Tweet.

Should I join Twitter?



Before you all raise your proverbial internet voices to supply your answer to the question, let me firstly explain what Twitter is, for those of you who've spent the last decade of your lives inhabiting an abandoned coal reserve in the Carpathian mountains. Explaining to you what Twitter is might also cause me to suddenly realise what I should do, too...or perhaps not. Anyway, having explained what it's all about, I'll give you my opinion on it. Hooray.

As far as Wikipedia knows, "Twitter" is a "free social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets." Basically, I join and let others follow my account. My hypothetical followers can view my tweets, or short snippets of text, and thereby can know my every opinion, action and location at any given moment. Every user has a profile, like most social networking sites, but the focus is put on the continuous creation of and response to tweets. As you can imagine, the tweets add up. Some people tweet ridiculously frequently, too. In reality, it could be conceived as the ultimate social networking utility, because those following your account can reply to your tweets, or direct their tweets at you, allowing for real-time communication. Apparently, if my brother is to be believed, the tweet is gradually coming to replace the text message in the United States.

"Sounds fantastic!", you say; "Why haven't you already joined?". This is where my conservative nature comes into the spotlight. I have two main reasons for my hesitation. Firstly, I can imagine myself being a devoted Twitter fan. I can imagine myself using it to its full potential, and using it to share any thought that comes to my mind. This is partially where the problem lies. I could and would become a what is known as a Twitter whore:


18:32 Chicken just sneezed.

18:34 Chicken sneezed again.

18:38 Chicken hasn't sneezed in 4 minutes. Getting worried.


It's that type of obsessive-compulsive behaviour I can imagine myself becoming involved in. The prospect is frightening. With that in mind, there is another reason for my hesitation in joining Twitter. Joining Twitter would mean that I'd have finally come to allow the internet into my daily life. It would mean that the internet would become part of my everyday routine; a necessary part. Sure, the internet is a part of my daily life already, with Facebook a daily feature and surfing sessions at night the norm, but Twitter is different. Some people constantly update their Twitter accounts. People use Twitter on their mobiles while eating breakfast, while going to work, while at the cinema and while almost anywhere. Twitter, for those people, goes hand in hand with every daily activity. I don't know if I'm ready to allow the internet to become a continuous and essential part of my life like that.

Twitter epitomises modern Western society; a society in which, let's face it, the internet is a source and a sink of content, knowledge and communication. It's a society in which traditional values and direct human contact are becoming less and less prevalent and important.

I don't particularly want to accept that.