Friday, August 28, 2009

Tweeting Is Not Writing.

The world of Blogging, and the art of posting is going the way of the diary and the personal journal.
Micro blogging and "tweets" are now part and parcel of the art of the personal story.
The blog is a place where we write to share, get feedback where possible, and tell a story to the world.
And it literally is the world, as the internet has connected us to lands once foreign and not visited by us in person, but now the good people of Spain, Cuba, China, New Zealand among just a few, daily drop in to read our ramblings.

Twitter took the art of the story, and told us it was too long! There were many who did not want the 1000 word story. Just a simple "tweet" updating us on what television show we were watching, and what fruit we ate from the market.
Dumb it down and tweet it out.

"Brenda is out of bed and making lunches"
or "Ken feels 100 years old today"
or "Bucky had a steaming triple latte from "Fourbucks" a few minutes ago".
Was this what we wanted, or were we told that this is what the world wanted from us?

Are we lazy at reading or writing?
Just asking.

And I ask not to be a smart ass in the pejorative sense. I ask because I honestly want to know, from you dear readers: Is this is what we really only want to know?

I want to be connected to friends or even people that I have known through their writings, but never had the amazing good fortune of sitting down and breaking bread in person with.
After reading your posts for the past 2 years I feel like I know you. Should I feel silly reading a eight word experience with a egg sandwich?

("Craig just had the best egg sandwich ever!")

Actual tweet, I just changed the name to protect the name of the sandwich!

I dunno, I guess I am disappointed at the brevity of life and the recording of thoughts. Facebook started a whole journey of life "tweets" if you will, that took us into the lives of our social network.
Just today I read some "posts" on Facebook from my friends. I like these people and accepted their invitation to be their "friend" on Facebook, (this task in itself always makes me smile. "Will you be my friend"? I want to send message back: "I am your friend, or I thought I was") but I really don't care if they are "tired and going to bed" nightly. Well that is not entirely correct as I do care. I just always assumed that we get tired and we go to bed nightly. Posting it for their friends edification seem silly in my books.

Blogs are different in some respects, and can be challenging, enlightening, spiritually uplifting, and a damn good read!
Twitter took the blog and made it into the Readers Digest condensed version. Funny, because Readers Digest just filed for bankruptcy.

Now IBM has patented a device for our television remotes that will allow us to tweet a message out while we watch TV. Not only will is it a dedicated "Twitter" device, but it will have "canned" messages on the remote that will tweet a standard message.
"I am watching....(name of program will appear)" Too lazy to tweet or tap out a text? Just hit the #7 key and a pre-existing tag will tweet out your micro blog and tell your network of just as lazy friends that you are watching the latest episode of house, and you are luvin it!

I write for me.
I write because I love the art of words; the language.
I know that social networking is here and big, and I won't change that, nor do I wish to. I am on Facebook, and love to be kept in the loops of my friends lives.

I just don't need to know the minute and mundane details of their television lives.

I love the art of the story, and hope it never dies! I will always read your full account of lives journey with all the warts and speed bumps. I will laugh with you and cry with you, and savor the scents of the day with you as you describe in wonderful wordy detail the beauty of life!


Warmest,

David

20 comments:

smalltownme said...

Thank you, David. I love your words!

Pseudo said...

I'm with you on this one David. I did hear one think about Twitter that got me interested, but not enough to join in. Twitter news updates.

LegalMist said...

I don't tweet or follow anyone on twitter. I read blogs because I enjoy the deeper insights into a person's thoughts and character. I really *don't* care to know if anyone (even my very best friend) just had an egg sandwich or is going to bed right now, unless I am physically in the same place with him / her, in which case it might be relevant information. If someone wants to blog about the best egg sandwich ever and add in some humor or a touching story about how they love egg sandwiches because it reminds them of [their mother, their brother, their best friend, kindergarten, their favorite place on earth, or whatever], great! That could be interesting. But a tweet that just says, "I ate a great egg sandwich"? Who the heck cares?!?

Glad to see you back writing a little more often; I've missed your thoughts. :)

Tom Hannon said...

Pretty damned good topic, my dear David! To Twit or not that is a question!

For me tweetering is a fun diversionary tool by which I keep my writing in check, an exercise in taming my verbosity when describing what is on my mind or in my heart or off the tip of my tongue! Gives me a chance to play with our language, use obscure words and/or derive new meaning to them, and make it fit in 140 characters with spaces!

Personally I think it ridiculous that one feels a need to post a continual stream of words or upload out of focus cell photos as the writer progresses through a Four Buck line or is going to bed or eating at a food chain or other mundane daily tasks! Who cares? I certainly don’t! But if it makes one happy, warm or fuzzy content then that is okay.

Me being the strange deaf duck that I am I still write by hand with a Pelikan M800 fountain pen into a leather bound blank page book; no one cares to know many sheets of Charmin I just used!

Tom : Deaf 2006 : CI-Borg 2007 : Luminoid 2008-9

Annieofbluegables said...

I agree with you, David. I have not joined Twitter for that reason. I did finally understand Facebook. It is like a newspaper. My husband didn't understand Facebook until I said that. He now has found many friends he has lost touch with and is enjoying it. It is fun to chat once in a while.
But like you, I'm not interested in the movie or television show they are currently watching or what brand of popcorn they eat. . .
thanks for your nicely written posts.
I have been following your posts about your vacation. What a nice time.
~a

hockeychic said...

I do not do Twitter. I do enjoy Facebook as it has brought many old friends back into my life. I think Twitter seems to enforce the "ADD" culture a bit too much. But then the news feeds out of Iran during the protests and so forth showed how Twitter could be used in a very productive way.

I love the art of a story and your writing is truly an art.

Namaste!

Anonymous said...

I fully and totally and get your points on this manner. I do tweet though, and I read tweets. Explanation: Twitter is for me an excellent news channel. I follow a number of publications, a lot of them having to do with current events and/or environmental issues. They tweet links to stories that they find important, and often times, I think they're important too. So, instead of surfing the net for hours and reading waaaay too much, I see what my chosen twitterers find important.

Am so over reading about someone baking bread or getting ready for work. I do love tweets from my fav comedians though. They make my day, because the brevity of it really makes them get to the punch. And I try to be funny too. Just as a service. :-)

Anonymous said...

Sometimes I will hold off and savor a blog post later on, if it is deep and rich. Yours often are this way.
While I can appreciate facebook for several things (photo albums of friends, fun little quizes & random notes) it does often seem shallow.

LegalMist said it well: tell me a story (humorous or touching) about how the egg sandwich reminds a person of mother/brother/whatever. That is the kind of writing I enjoy!
Sadly, I'm not often that kind of writer. In a busy life, sometimes a brief blurb is all I can coherently manage.

Jan D-M said...

Hi, David,

I so agree. I went kicking and screaming into Facebook just in the last month. I thought I would be violating my adult kids privacy until they both told me it was not a problem. It ended up being different than I thought and within one day I had connected with an old and dear friend I'd lost touch with fifteen years ago. I don't need to know when people are going to bed or taking a poo, but I love that I learn things about nieces and nephews that I would not have known before because someone forgot to say...They live on both ends of the country and we never see each other. Today I learned my nephew and his wife are expecting their third baby. That would have been something I may never have learned (distance, loss of the connector in the family, etc). Anyway, I digress.

I love reading posts. I love the thought, the turn of a word or phrase, the story. I love reading YOUR posts, David.

joanne said...

I'm not a big Facebook fan (gasp!), it just isn't for me, neither is the Tweety thing. I don't get it at all, maybe it's an age thing??? I'm not quite sure what that says about me! I love the blog, the written word, the storytelling, the thread that connects us with one another. I think I will stay in my bloggy-world and leave the tweeting for the others.
Glad you are back to blogging regularly. I loved the vacation photos and I am happy that you are well. Take care my friend and be sure to stop by when you have a chance...jj

Laura ~Peach~ said...

i have face book for fast information and the games :) I blig and read blogs for the love of the people... I so love vicariously being a part of your lives seeing in photos things i will never get to see in my life and of course sharing expreiences and life adventures (teens) asking and recieving advice and my very infamous run on sentances and gramatical errors... somewhere out there is an english teacher shaking her head saying I told her the right way i swear...
I also love face book for the pictures it is so much easier to load and share pictures there ... blogger has had a crappy attitude toward me lately!
Anyway blog on!!!!! Blogs are the best!

Sydney said...

I simply don't understand Twitter. I think what frustrates me even more is the people who have synced up Facebook and Twitter are are posting "tweets" as status updates. I still enjoy blogging and reading other blogs, but I just don't think I need to document the mundane details of my life any more than I already do.

themom said...

I have a Twitter account, yet very seldom get to it! I love to put my thoughts and feelings into my blog better than anything. Facebook is also on my list, but still in the "sub" category.

Lori said...

I think you have taken the words right out of my mouth. I don't twitter because I really don't have time and I can't really imagine anyone being all that interested in my day to day happenings. I do care about people but I don't need to know such details of their lives. Maybe I am missing something in all of this that I am not getting? While I love the blogging world, even that I don't have enough time for but when I do, I love the words that encourage me, make me laugh and make me think deeper or of another perspective. I have cried and laughed to many posts.
My children and siblings hound me to get a facebook account which I may consider come winter and all the snow.

I'm glad to see that I am not the only one that feels this way because by the sounds of it sometimes, I am the only one not tweeting...lol!

Life As I Know It Now said...

I am glad to see you blogging again David.

I dropped out of facebook after joining for a month. Worlds were colliding and I didn't like that. Plus, I could see that one reason why people weren't blogging as much was because they were coming out of the closet, so to speak, and being themselves on facebook instead.

I have a twitter account but I rarely use it. If I read a great blog post and want to share I'll tweet it. I also listen to music on blip.fm and the songs I play tweet as well.

But I do agree, blogs are charming because we get to meet each other through words, with our ideas, with our stories and that is special. I love reading blogs, yours included!

Kerry said...

Tweet or Twitter doesn't interest me at all. As for Facebook I joined to get a class reunion together and it was a fast way to find people.But that's it.
I like blogging because its the written word with insights on the other persons perspective.

Lynn said...

So funny. I feel the same way about Facebook. I finally gave into peer pressure and joined, but life has much too much going on to be sitting at it all day letting the world know what I am doing from one minute to the next. Invite me to be your friend, will you? I know, I know, we are friends. But invite me anyway - makes me feel important!

bobbie said...

David, you are so very right on this one! I will not tweet. Won't join Face Book either. I just want to put down my thoughts (in full) as they come to me, and hope someone will respond. I live alone and am OLD, and it is so nice to have conversation. Or just to write for myself.

MsCatMinder said...

oh .... Im so glad you're back ...

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