Am I missing something here?

Alright, I don’t want to step on any toes here, but can I just say: Twitter. I just don’t GET IT. Seriously! Am I missing something? Because everybody seems to love Twitter, and to me it seems like… um, text messaging? Or a glorified version of the similarly pointless Facebook status. For anyone who doesn’t know, Twitter is a… I don’t know, service, I guess, that allows one to write little messages or updates in 140 words or less and publish them on the internet for their friends or “followers” to read. Things like, “Just saw Twilight, it was amaaazing,” or “Just ate some kickass sushi.” Brilliant, right?

I’ll be honest; I signed up for Twitter once upon a time. And used it for, oh, maybe a week before I found it to be a complete waste of time – and let me say, in this age of blogs, Youtube, and the like, I really don’t need any more ways to waste time! So I ask you: if you want to contact your friend, why Twitter when you can just text message them? Or better yet, call them. And I know that you can follow celebrities’ Twitters – oh boy, oh boy – but a) tons of celebrities have assistants to write their Twitters, and b) do you actually care what Lindsay Lohan has to say in 140 words or less? Do you really? I also realize that Twitter can be used for social networking, for "meeting" people online for whatever reason - say, to attract them to your blog. But damn it, I write online because I don't want to deal with people all the time! I don't feel like writing inane little updates about my life or sending stupid hi-how-are-yous to people I don't know in order to attract readers. It seems silly to me, and superficial.

My biggest problem with Twitter, though, is the fact that most people use it to constantly update cyberspace on their every move, instead of actually being present and enjoying what they’re doing as they do it. What is the point? It’s like how in high school my friends and I used to take cameras everywhere we went, and then spend the whole time at the party or whatever taking pictures to remember an event that we never took time to enjoy in the first place. Which is a whole other problem now that Facebook has come along, come to think of it, but that’s another story. The point is, I don’t carry a camera with me everywhere anymore. I don’t feel the need to show the world how much fun I’m having all the time; I’d rather experience it firsthand. I don’t see how this whole Twitter thing is any better. Texting has already caused enough problems, in my opinion, as far as common politeness goes – people texting during meals or during a movie or show, for example – and now that Twitter has gone mobile, I think it can only get worse. I think one of the biggest problems for our generation is the tendency to be somewhere else mentally than we are physically, which means we risk never getting the full impact of any experience or conversation or relationship. If texting is already a social problem, what effect will Twitter have on us?