Column – Tell the little bird to shut up

Talk about it

Life’s too short to tweet.

Call me negative. Call me anti-information highway. Call me wary of sharing every facet of my life with complete strangers via the Internet. Call me unwilling to embrace the marvels of technology.

But I don’t think embracing the marvels of technology has anything to do with knowing what Wanda had for breakfast. I have better things to do with my time. And I can’t help but wonder…who really cares?

Besides Wanda. And maybe her friends and family. But if they really want to know that Wanda just ate some yogurt or loves her boyfriend, can’t she call them or send them a text message instead of posting her every move on the Internet?

The Web is atwitter with the latest time waster that leaves people glued to their computer screens, addicted to another weird form of Internet voyeurism. It’s called Twitter. And if you’re really hard up for stuff to do, or want to add another useless item to your to-do list to make your life even more crazy, visit www.twitter.com.

Twitter is a site in which people can communicate with each other through the exchange of quick answers to one soul-searching, suspense-building question: “What are you doing?”

Oh, but there’s a catch: When you post your amazingly profound answer, you have to use 140 characters or less.

Here’s how it works: You create a Twitter account, and voila! You, too, can start to tweet like a chirpy little bird. (Tweet – yes, a verb has already been coined, which means to post comments on Twitter.) At the top of the page it says “What are you doing?” followed by your moniker. You then proceed to tell everyone what you are doing, because I’m pretty sure they are dying to know. Then you amass a collection of “followers,” Internet groupies who have nothing better to do than stalk your every move.

I’ll use wandaxx (her name has been changed to protect her time-wasting identity) as an example. Following are some of her life-changing comments:

wandaxx: thinks that talking on phone w/boyfriend for 53 minutes does not help her get her work done. *giggle* (She couldn’t help herself.)

wandaxx: is finally eating something. Yogurt at 8:30 a.m. isn’t enough.

wandaxx: must get to work. 70 emails. She needs to get through them today.

wandaxx: has done some work, eaten breakfast, is down to inbox 62 from 78. wanda is a good person.

wandaxx: has finally eaten lunch, a chicken caesar salad.

wandaxx: is at therapy thank god.

wandaxx: needs to be getting WAY more work done.

wandaxx: has gotten a total of four emails done now. : ) wanda is pathetic.

I’ll have to agree with her on that one.

I know it sounds completely crazy and may come as quite a shock to Wanda…but maybe if she quit spending so much time posting inane comments on Twitter, she would actually get some work done. Novel idea!

Like fingers slowly screeching down a blackboard, Twitter has also resulted in one of my biggest pet peeves – literary and oratory: People who refer to themselves in the third person.

wandaxx: is eating a salad. Wanda loves salad.

Wandaxx: is talking to her boy. wanda <3 her boy (apparently, this is supposed to be a heart).

How old is Wanda? Three? Isn’t referring to yourself as another person a conversational faux pas that is recurrent in the vocabulary of preschoolers? For that reason alone, I don’t think I’ll ever become a tweeter or a follower.

Jo thinks Twitter is silly and pointless. She doesn’t get it.

Jo has better things to do than tweet.

She thinks it’s for the birds.

Tags: opinion, column, jo, colvin