Chapter 42

Twitter is changing my life, kind of.

I was a late adopter compared to most people— it’s only in the last month or so that I’ve been taking an active interest in it.  (The day I started to get into using it, they mentioned it on the Daily Show.)  Now I use it to communicate with clients, friends, or students at the schools we’re working with; to shoot the breeze with my co-workers, some of whom work in distant cities; and sometimes simply to spout off about whatever, just like everyone else.  I used to Twitter a lot about Twitter.

Mostly I think of Twitter as a way to reinforce White Whale’s fundamental message: that five people can run and grow a moderately successful business, and in the process change nothing about the way we express ourselves: in a nutshell, that the people we are online are the same people we are in person. (I think the same goes for my four co-workers Tonya, Alex, Donald and Janie.)  We don’t practice much message control because we don’t really have much to hide. (Whatever I do have to say that’s worth hiding, I express on symmetrical networks only.)

Although the 140-character short form initially seemed too restrictive, I’m now finding it a great source of inspiration.  Here is what I think is perhaps the most perfect tweet ever written, by my old friend @johnpavelkehlen:

I don’t know about you, and maybe it’s just because I miss my old friend’s company, but I can imagine myself dining with John and his friend in his little garret pretty easily reading that, and he didn’t need a single extra character to express it.  As John himself reminded me, brevity is the soul of wit, and never has that felt more technologically true.

Having said all that, I worry a little about the effect Twitter is having on me.

For one thing, I’m on much more than usual these days.  I move through the world with an active and engaged brain. I see things as I’m walking to work (today it was an odd misspelling on a sign) and think, should I Twitter this? (I’m convinced that the verb is “to Twitter,” not “to tweet.”)  A thought occurs to me.  It feels sorta profound. Is it profound enough to become a tweet?  And if so, will it affect my follow cost?

I like to think that when I’m working at my best, I have a fairly sharp eye for detail and nuance; thanks to Twitter, I carry this eye around with me much more than I used to, and these details and nuances hang around.  I’m worried LOST is going over the top with this “judging Ben” thing.  I enjoy Bonterra’s organic Zinfandel. I really love my bank.  Which of these things should I broadcast?  (answer) In a nutshell, I never thought I’d spend so much time qualitatively evaluating my own thoughts.

So after a day spent out in the world this way, I sit down to dinner with my wife.  Am I going to Twitter about how great dinner was?  Or what a wonderful evening I’m having?

Of course not.  Because that’s my time, not yours. But the temptation is very strong!  And I don’t always resist it.

I am learning to control the impulse to chronicle my leisure time; this is largely because White Whale is my company, Twitter is partially a work thing, and if I let work bleed into every corner of my life it would destroy me.  But I can tell that it’s changing people, and I’m not sure it’s always for the better.

I see people, friends of mine, twittering about how they just woke up, or they’re happy, or it’s a beautiful day.  Is the chronicling of that experience (and the cognitive and physical processes required to make it happen) interfering with the plain appreciation of the fact?  I can’t see how it doesn’t.  Here’s a guy who Twitters a hundred times per day. (Don’t ask about his follow cost.)  People like that used to be considered wackos or oddballs (like 2004 presidential candidate Bob Graham, a compulsive diarist)— now they’re just high-tech, plugged-in people.

But does anyone worry about the long term effects of this way of relating to the world?  It seems like the opposite of ADD— Attention Surplus Disorder.  I wonder if the most active Twitterers among us ever will ever enjoy the pleasure of a blank mind, an hour spent staring into space, etc. What we now think of as “vegging out” is what they used to call “relaxation.”  Actions that now might be considered downright yogic— like simply not speaking for a couple of hours— used to be the norm, I’m sure, at a less frantic time in human history.

For now, it’s fun.  I like keeping tabs on what my friends are eating, reading, listening to, or coding.  It’s an enjoyably odd feeling to know what very casual business acquaintances think about certain TV shows.

But in the long term, will the people who engage most deeply with technology lose the ability to exist quietly in the world it’s brought us?

Note: 140 characters exactly in that last paragraph. Bam!

Tags: carrots, cumin, idleness, twitter, web 2.0, whitewhale

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