flora and flying - You cannot make this stuff up

I spent today trying to not care about any sort of social media. I did keep my phone nearby as to see if TH would check in from the frigid north.

She did, late.

Out of boredom, I would hit the twitter icon on the blackberry and then think to myself - do I really care what you are doing? Do you care what I am doing? Why am I following a bunch of people who follow each other, start conversations or make dinner plans that 10000 people follow and don't invite you?

Twitter - The whole concept is voyeuristic and at the same time, disheartening and at times ego deflating. I wonder to myself --am I not a cool kid? Am I not one of the in crowd? Honestly, at the ripe age of 40 something, why do I care about such clique ridden things? Most of these intimate between two people conversations can be held via a email stream that not all of us really need to cc ed. It is my belief that for some,Twitter is now replacing that level of intimacy that most of us have come to cherish - notes passed in the hall, an email check up, and horrors of horrors - picking up the phone and actually talking to someone.

I think I understand why teens are not twittering -- IM works better to have a icon to icon conversation without the rest of the world reading and laughing along.

Why do I give a flying puck?

From an intellectual level and as a person trying to grasp how social media can be used for information dissemination - it is important. If I had a graduate student and a lot of time, I would spend time reading tweet streams of certain groups of people and the ask others to assess what they are really get from 140 characters or less? If I had the strength - I would write an abstract for AAG.

In terms of information dissemination -- news feeds, hurricane advisories, software updates, twitter is fantastic. Case in point, @dooce used twitter this weekend to reach out to her 1 million plus followers for help in locating a missing friend with some mental illness issues who was last seen in the Phoenix area. The police were not willing to start an investigation - but did at the urging of the public. Imagine if we could do the same with Amber Alerts, flood information, severe weather, that is a great use of twitter, what your on the spur of the moment lunch plans - not so much.

So, will I stop twittering, nope, but I will be more likely to keep things to myself and pick up the phone a little more often.