why everyone not using twitter is dumb.

okay, that's obviously a slight exaggeration.  slight.  but, people seem to be realizing the usefulness of the twitter platform more and more widely as time goes on.  what i've seen with people's reaction to twitter is, i think, the exact same phenomenon that you see whenever a new form of popular media takes hold in the culture: whether it's the cinema, jazz music, the record player, video games, internet chat rooms, etc. there's also a mass of people who explode in consternation and condemnation of this new technology, usually linking it to the devil, or moral decline, or just sheer cussed laziness.

there's always a variant of this more general reaction with new social networking/information aggregating phenomena: MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, (to a lesser degree) RSS.  there's this idea that these things don't actually serve any useful purpose, that they're usually just abused by people who have problems interacting in the real world, as a way to cushion the impact of real life, or to overly-aggrandize their small accomplishments.  sometimes there's some merit to these assertions, just like there's merit to most stereotypes, i'll admit that (okay, do we really need to see 110 pictures of your new baby on facebook?  i mean, i want to see one, sure, but the others are probably fine just on your hard drive, just for you).  but, what's at the core of these new technologies, what has always been at the core of them, is the development of a new way to aggregate, network, view, and share information.  i mean, MySpace (although a bit anachronistic now) helped revolutionize the way companies advertised online, and more specifically the way artists made their music available electronically.  facebook accomplishes a lot of the same things, but over an even wider (and less neon-colored) spectrum.  RSS and twitter strip away the expectation for you to "put yourself out there" at all.  you can just tune in to the stream of information and avoid the egoizing (if that's how you want to see it) completely.

sure, there are always bad, silly things that these technologies are used for, and often they're used for these bad, silly things but the majority of the people who use them.  but how is that new?  has that facet of human nature (i.e. give someone a soapbox and a megaphone and they'll probably use them, and stupidly) just sudden come to be thanks to the internet?  i'm guilty myself of sharing lots of pointless, potentially self-aggrandizing things online that nobody cares about, i'm sure.  but at the same time, MySpace let me share a bunch of music online when i was just starting out that allowed me to get feedback and get in touch with other starting musicians that i never would have met otherwise.  it let me learn about bands i wouldn't have heard of by reading even independent local magazines.  facebook straight up makes it easy to organize social events.  i type up what i want to do, where i want to do it, who i want to invite, and BAM, the whole conversation can take place live, right there, much more fluidly and simply than even over email.  twitter is just fantastic, like RSS in a tiny box that just gives me pop-up notices and if i don't think that "telling everyone what i ate for lunch" is important (it's usually not, unless it's gourmet grilled cheese) then i DON'T HAVE TO WRITE ANYTHING.  if i'm following someone who tweets inanely 21 times a day THEN I CAN STOP FOLLOWING THEM.  the information flow control is entirely in your hands, and it's pretty damn easy to learn how to use (except occasionally in the case of facebook, but that's another story), so you can filter out the bad and you can use the good to make you aware of everything you actually want to know.  how many of those links you follow and how many twitpics you look at are then entirely up to you within the time constraints you have.

i'm trying not to just whine in the post (even though i'm failing), but things like twitter are (i believe) revolutionizing the way we interact with information, which is more and more becoming a foundational part of our day-to-day lives as more information becomes available and as we (professionally at the very least, if not otherwise) will become more and more responsible for that information.  this is why i got into a lot of the stuff i'm currently studying, because it's not going to go away, it's just going to become more and more ubiquitous, and more and more the people who refuse to take part in things like twitter as they come into being are the people who end up having to (not choosing to) give up and join in a few years down the road when it becomes obvious that this stuff isn't going away.

i guess i'm also just naturally curious and figure you might as well get in on the ground floor when something cool comes along.

also, as an unrelated note, i am honest-to-god certain that the sangria's tofu vegetarian burrito is the best food i've ever eaten in my life.