I Don't Tweet

I post infrequently to this blog. I posted fairly frequently during the election, I suppose, but I have posted less frequently post-election. I have posted occasionally in the last 10 days to express my considerable approval for the job our president is doing in his first days in office. I expect I will continue to do so. I heart Obama, I suppose.

I also heart Stephen Fry, as attested by a couple of posts in December. (One on the 18th. Another on the 19th) And as someone who enjoys Stephen and his blog and his blessays I was quite happy to see that he has finally posted a new blog entry – not a blessay, this time – on his site. Stephen blogs less frequently than myself, you see, but when he does it’s worth reading.

And I suppose today’s would be worth reading if I tweeted. If I were a Twitter user. Which I am not.

If I were it might have been useful to absorb, fully, Stephen’s suggested ground rules for tweeting / twittering him. He has a number of Twitter followers you see, and he simply cannot keep up with them all, but he shall try and he has presented them with suggestions for how best to tweet in his particular case.

He ends the post saying “Welcome to my twitterworld, I am delighted to have you as a follower. Let’s enjoy ourselves and to hell with those who don’t get it.”

Well, I don’t get it. I will not be a part of Stephen's twitterworld, or anyone’s. So to hell with me.

(Well, maybe Obama’s… That might be cool… I don't know if Obama ever tweeted, though, and if he did I doubt he is permitted to do so now. So...)

I don’t tweet.

I don’t tweet. I haven’t tweeted. I do not intend to tweet. I will not tweet.

On some level the very concept of constantly updating people as to where I am and what I’m doing simply disturbs me.

I think I can safely say that Twitter was inspired by Facebook and its users’ ability to update their status, and their tendency to do so constantly.

Just now I logged into Facebook to see exactly how I worded my last status update. I see that on the 19th I updated it to reflect that I am “indulging in high hopes for the Obama presidency” and I see no need to update that. I still am indulging my high hopes even though many of my hopes have already been met. I have higher hopes, still.

The point: Apparently it’s been 10 days since I updated my facebook status.

...

In the midst of this column I find myself tempted to update my Facebook status, which is annoying, as I am in mid-rant about the frivolousness of the entire enterprise.

Here’s the thing: It might not be frivolous today.

...

We’ve had kind of a big week in Louisville, Kentucky. Many hours of freezing rain has caused trees to become over-weight with ice. This was later compounded with snow, so trees have fallen or dropped branches, snapping power-lines in the process. Some of the power-lines snapped under the weight of the ice and snow without any trees’ helpful assistance. This has resulted in power outages for roughly a third of the population of the city / county.

Louisville had finally recovered from the remnants of Hurricane Ike which had much the same effect back in September. (My neighbor finally got his roof fixed last week...) Of course, Ike knocked out power for nearly three-fourths of the metro area, affecting many more people than are affected now.

So I find, as I look at Facebook, that I am becoming apprised of the status of various folks I know. A few are thankful they have power. Others have uploaded photos of various ice-covered or icicle-laden objects.

Perhaps it would be of some utility to update my status to “is without power at home, but is able to get to work without difficulty from his fiancee’s.” Anyone concerned for my well-being would be instantly updated, with no real effort on their part.

I’d like to see a little effort, though.

During this time of difficulty my parents have called to make sure I’m alright. (They have power, incidentally, but they have one tree leaning on their garage and another that is partly in their neighbors’ driveway.) My intended and I have been updating each other frequently. (She’s safely at work at our state capitol today, although there was a significant delay on the interstate.) Through my parents I am aware that my brother and his family have power and cell phones, although their land-line is out (but the DSL is working – what’s up with that?).

What I’m saying is that I do not feel the need to broadcast my status, or changes to my status, to any group of people. Individuals can learn of my status by contacting me directly, or through traditional social-networking to which the word “online” does not pertain.

Individuals can alternatively simply assume that everything’s fine - that's usually the case - in a detail-free kind of way.

I guess that’s it – the details. So much of current online interaction is about sharing the details of one’s life with everyone who cares to know. I did this effectively - but much less efficiently - in my 20’s through direct social interaction and near-constant use of the phone (and a little email, too) until I finally had a minor epiphany that even my best friends did not require and were perhaps uninterested in the level of detail I was providing.

This was a hard-won revelation, and I find myself unwilling to reverse my relatively newfound position.

For that matter, the older I get the more I appreciate a certain degree of privacy, just for its own sake.

And then there’s the matter of security. If I broadcast the details of my daily routine then characters of a malicious nature would be able to know when my house is empty and therefore easily robbed. They might also know that there’s nothing worth stealing, so it would probably be moot, but still...

It just seems odd, in an age in which many people are very concerned about identity theft and fraud, that many people are now willing to put many details of their life out there for all to see. A traditional con artist could make bank exploiting this. It seems to me like a constant series of unnecessary risks.

I guess I don’t get it. So to hell with me.

Maybe I should update my status to “is going to hell.”...?

That wouldn’t really be an update, though. Surely my Facebook friends already knew that.