Twitter

At the beginning of this project, I was a bit intimidated about using Twitter. A while later I actually started my own Twitter account, just to see what it was like to use. It wasn't hard to keep it to 140 characters, as there's a countdown ticker right next to the box you type in, which is actually a little distracting! I did find that it was hard to come up with anything worthwhile to say with only 140 characters. Maybe I'm just used to writing and reading long sentences in notebooks and novels, instead of texting, but it hasn't become something I use very often. It seems to be used mostly for quick flashes of self-promotion, so it can be useful if you have something good to promote (like the library), but it sounds like there's a lot of endless mind-looping clutter out there. My husband and I do like to read Bret Easton Ellis's twitter account from time to time (he's the author of American Psycho), he writes short and witty comments on pop culture and seems to have figured out how to use the medium in an intelligent and clever way that conforms to the Twitter restrictions while also keeping the essence of his writing style, which is rare! Most other celebrity twitter accounts I've found seem to be full of conversations between various people (if a Twitter post begins with @username, that means they're addressing this tweet to that specific user) or are full of no doubt interesting links (??) that are hard to follow as an outsider.

This article by Margaret Atwood about how she came to love Twitter shows the good side of the beast:

The Twittersphere is an odd and uncanny place. It’s something like having fairies at the bottom of your garden... a playful but also a helpful group. If you ask them for advice, it’s immediately forthcoming. ... So what’s it all about, this Twitter? Is it signaling, like telegraphs? Is it Zen poetry? Is it jokes scribbled on the washroom wall? Is it John Hearts Mary carved on a tree? Let’s just say it’s communication, and communication is something human beings like to do.

But if the medium is the message, what message is Twitter sending? That communicating can be done in the mysterious grunts and code of shortened URLs and keyboard symbols? That we're too rushed to really spell out what we mean and anyways, you should know all about that by now? Is it a short punch to the ribs of the people nearest you in cyberspace, hey look at me!

I may try Twitter again at some point to see if I can find any book tweeting going on, but it seems very utilitarian to me and without a lot of poetry, beauty or lasting meaning. I could be wrong though.