Buh-Bye Twitter
I’ve tweeted my last tweet.If your a diligent visitor to my blog, you’ll notice that the Twitter section on the right hand side is no longer there. My iPhone is noticing that the volume of SMS messages has dropped way down. Most importantly my brain is feeling less distracted.I’ve been a big fan of Twitter for a while now. So far I’ve created 1,281 tweets. 1,281 little 100 character updates sent who knows where. Now I think I’m done though. There are a number of reasons I decided to get off the Twitter bus.
- Twitter is addictive, at least for me. The distraction was too pronounced, and while it’s fun to keep up with a number of people you wouldn’t otherwise see that much — it also pulls you out of the experience you are having right then.
- I prefer blogging, and the complete sentences and paragraphs that surround it. While blogging is not incompatible with Twitter, I feel that I’m blogging less in part because I Twitter in between things.
- It has the potential to lessen the value of in-person discussions. When catching up with a friend I’ll think “I saw that on your Twitter” and then we move on. But really, could a 100 character SMS really sum up the richness of a trip to the zoo with your kids?
I don’t mean to condemn Twitter. Different strokes for different folks after all. And I do think it’s a great platform for mobile live blogging. I’ve kept my account active even though it’s disconnected from my phone and everything else just in case I want to use it to live blog the Folk Festival or something. But for now, I bid adieu.If you happen to follow my robot, that account has been deleted.
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Comments
Looking forward to more blog entries from you now!
I remember the day you sent the first email about Twitter around to a few of us. You basically said: “I don’t get this…why is everyone so excited about it?” After taking one look at the Twitter website the answer was clear: because Twitter is stupid.
Still, it seemed important for us to embrace stupid and you were a ring leader in the stupid circus that followed. You demonstrated Twitters simplicity, its banality, its raw power. The bandwagon slowly filled with your friends, colleagues and even some people who were just too embarrassed to say no.
So many great things happened on Twitter. Who can forget the time Chris twittered hopefully that Kent wasn’t on the 35W bridge? Or the time Anna twittered about the HR offiste? Or the time you were waiting in line at the airport? Or all those great Kent twitters?
Who indeed. I guess we must all grow up and possibly grow out of the stupid little things that used to make us happy. We leave behind the trappings of youth and even our friends and colleagues who used to delight in the occasional update. You got to do what you got to do.
There are, then, just two things I feel compelled to bring forth. One is a complaint, the other an observation. First, it makes no sense at all to turn off the robot. I don’t see how your big hang up about what ever the heck it is that is causing you to “drop out” should kill a perfectly innocent robot, especially one that I personally counted on to get the temperature both inside and outside your house. You have moved on but must that essentially bring an end to the simple robot?
Second, it appears that Kent has also stopped using twitter but apparently didn’t have the guts to bring it to anyone’s attention. So to that end I think you deserve recognition for not taking the cowardly way out. I hope to be corrected on this point soon…
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