To Tweet or Not To Tweet?

In my inbox I am forever finding nudges, pokes,invitations and all manner of cyber reminders that I am not yet fully techied up and am therefore missing all of the goings on in the virtual world.  The trouble is, viewing it from this side of ignorance, I can’t see what the attraction is.  It just doesn’t turn me on.

When Husband finally allowed Thirteen to have a Facebook account (we’re both paranoid about predatory pervs peeking up her virtual skirt) it struck me that all she seems to do is spend more time wasting her precious youth looking at inane things and chatting to friends she sees every day at school than she used to.   It’s like a progression from achieving a diploma at the College of MSN or Skype to enrolling for a degree at the University of FaceBook.

This might be totally inaccurate – I’m not actually allowed to look over her shoulder as she types, just as she is not allowed to look over mine so I suppose it’s no more than random speculation – but that’s how it seems from my side of 40.   Husband had already acquired a Facebook account and since he has done so, all the techy nerds he avoided in former jobs have tracked him down and asked to be his friend.  My goodness, it’s becoming more and more like real life!  The other one, and by ‘one’ I think I mean ‘social networking site’, is of course Twitter.  Now Twitter is completely different to Facebook, in that you can inform Everyone Out There of important events such as bowel movements, the temperature of your bath water and what you fed your cat for tea as they happen.

Snort…grunt….WHAT?  Oh sorry, I just nodded off for a moment there.  What was I saying.?  Oh yes.  Twitter.   I first heard of Twitter when the story broke about the plane ditching in New York’s Hudson River earlier this year, and someone on the Staten Island Ferry managed to post a photo taken on his mobile phone before it made the national press.  Now that’s impressive.  I had also heard about it before that through Stephen Fry’s writings, some of which I had actually managed to read without realising I was on a social networking site!  How on earth did I manage that?  Must have been my mischievous evil twin (Melanie) who sometimes pops out to wreak havoc when I’m asleep or otherwise occupied.  She’s the reason I don’t always remember things people tell me, because actually they’ve never told me – it was HER!

Anyway, I digress.  Since starting this blog, I have received a number of gentle nudges Twitter-wards but have so far resisted, more out of fear of the unknown than anything else.  Although I am assured that it is a very effective way of increasing one’s readership, I think I’d be one of those deserters who opens an account, posts a message  (‘Going to trim my ear hairs now’)  and then forgets to ever come back.  Someone has even taken the time to compile a list of them  (and applied the catchy moniker of Orphaned Tweets)  and reported on the more amusing ones.  They are even asking people to send the best ones in.

My personal fave is the following:

‘It hurts to breathe.  Should I go to the hospital?’

Right, well, it’s been lovely chatting.  Now here’s a practice tweet from me, ready for when I get my Twitter account.  I don’t want to end up a one twit wonder:

Must empty filter from dishwasher.  Hold tummy in.   Finish cup of tea.  Mmm that tasted nice.   Rinsing cup prior to stacking in dishwasher.   Going to pair up socks from laundry.  Time to open the custard.  Comb eyebrows first.  Keep holding tummy in.  Pull plug out of sink before washing hands..  Check no-one’s looking then scratch arse.

And she’s failed at the first hurdle.  Husband smugly informs me that tweets cannot be longer than 140 characters.

Oh well, guess I’m more Twit than Tweet………

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