Twitter

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Other

I have given in to peer pressure. Admittedly, about a year or two too late. Nevertheless, I am now one of those Twitter-ers. Or Tweeple (Tweeps?).

Twitter was all the rage in my online community more than a year ago. Not to say that I was never tempted. But I was lazy. In a moment of weakness, I did try signing up but for some reason, possibly due to very heavy traffic, I couldn't. And my laziness could only be challenged so much so I left it at that.

Fast forward to about a month ago when I finally had a chance to hang out with the Man-bloggers again. Everyone had apparently already migrated to Plurk. And I was still not micro-blogging. Because really, what can you possibly write in only 140 characters? Sure, in an era when ADHD is the norm, it does make sense to let self-expression out in little spurts. Maybe somehow, your 140-character splash of brilliance would not get drowned in everyone else's pools of 140-character splashes of brilliance. And maybe Ade would stop saying that I'm stuck in 2006. ("She's on Multiply. How 2006!")

But those weren't really what sent me a-twittering. I was curious, for one. And perhaps also because I am work-obsessed (there, I finally admitted it). One day I came across @DavidFeng's article on who to follow when it comes to #china twitter posts. If you still don't know (then perhaps you are also stuck in 2006), Twitter-ers break news faster than traditional media. The Mandarin Oriental fire in Beijing, for one, made the rounds of tweets and retweets before news agencies finally reported on it. See, I take all these China stuff very seriously. I have to know everything. Otherwise I'm not happy. So this is really all about my happiness when you think about it.

As with anything short and sweet, it is harder to work at the sweetness should it only be this short. I must admit I am one selfish Twitter-er. I tend to take more than I give. I suppose for many that would be a relief. Nothing witty to say? Then shut up. So in a way my tweeting life is more or less guided by that philosophy. I have very few followers, in fact. I am under no illusion that anyone would want to read live updates on what I'm doing every hour. And I admittedly find it hard to keep track of the 40 or so Twitter-ers I follow. I suppose it's all part of the new media: streams and streams of information flowing onto you, some are useful while most aren't, some will be interesting and sometimes you'll get lucky to get information you need at just the right time, just as you will miss many others without even knowing it. Very much like tuning out mindless chatter in a bus once you've deemed it worthless. So yeah, like life really, if you know what I mean.

And I just made my 100th update with my "is blogging about micro-blogging" post half an hour ago.