Twitterphobia

I resisted Twitter until forced by my Uni course to create an account and follow 5 people. 

Once I had had my arm twisted behind my back to look for some interesting people to follow I did find the occasional interesting thoughts, and decided to keep my Twitter account and check back from time to time.

I have not checked back, that was 3 months ago...  at this point I don't know if I will be checking back.

After pondering I have come to the conclusion that my dislike of Twitter stems from being uncomfortable with small talk.  Personally I have no need to share my daily menu etc with people, and when it comes to anything deeper, 140 characters usually doesn't do things justice.  And when it come to finding info I look at the masses of people, the masses of information, with so much of it meaningless to me, the thought of wading through it to find the gems makes me feel quite tired.  Especially as so much of Twitter seems to involve reading conversations, following questions and answers and other peoples comments, trying to keep track and having to follow references to other comments and ideas.  And finally I think about myself getting involved, needing to keep checking back to see if i have been answered, or need to answer someone else's Tweet, and it seems like a bit of a time-sink.

I will happily follow links and find new interesting ideas from artworks on Flickr, so maybe part of the problem is my visual emphasis.  This may be why I tend to find more satisfaction from blogs, as they are more likely to have pictures.

In Twitters defense I can see there are uses for a stream of brief information.  The much mentioned library updates for one.   I also see people sharing tweets from some of the library talks I have been to and I guess this could be interesting, getting the first thoughts and responses out there.  I understand people connect thoughts with Hash-tags etc to more effectively share info on a subject.  And people who actually like chit chat are probably in Tweeting heaven.

All this leads me to feel I should be able to use Twitter to learn, and to meet new people (or at least hear about and follow new people).  But when faced with the choice of reading Twitter or a blog or an article or even a book, Twitter always loses.

Anyway, in conclusion, while I could probably do a 'just the facts' Twitter stream for a company,  Twitter is not my cup of tea. 

But if you want a chat while building a Romanesque Theatre, Monster avatar or something equally weird in Second Life, I'm your gal.

Each to their own