Twitter-dee-dee

There's an old song from a 70s musical called "A Chorus Line". In the song, the singer laments "Who am I anyway? Am I my resume?"

I have a few words to say about Twitter and Facebook.

There are a variety of reasons why I don't like them, some more global than others.

It concerns me that we are all being reduced to "profiles" and communication is being reduced to 140 characters. It's depersonalizing. It is also desensitizing. When any of us become reduced to such soundbytes (or textbytes, as the case may be), communication degrades. Real communication requires time and effort. Do you really think anyone cares what color your couch is or what you are cooking for dinner?

Friendships take effort. Friendships take authenticity. They take.. excuse the expression... emotional investment. They take time. The kind of caring we all long for isn't something that can be automated or made convenient.

We minimalize ourselves into short paragraphs and call that "connecting". We reduce ourselves to snippets, skill sets and a litany of interests, even though we are all complex individuals with different qualities and interests at different times.

We no longer discriminate or discern. With Twitter, Facebook and even Blogger, we fill up our RSS feeds with too many things and end up communicating substantially with no one. I once read someone's site and he or she had over 600 subscriptions in Google Reader. (I have 55.) There is no way anyone can give adequate time to 600 feeds. It's tough enough with 55! I've been on Blogger for almost 2.5 years and I have had substantial connections with three people. That's because all four of us made the commitment of time, effort and communication.

All this hyper-linked content has created mass Attention Deficit Disorder. We're always looking for the next thing, the next technological "fix" that will satisfy an almost carnivorous desire for one more tittilating snippet of information. It's technological channel-surfing. Like call-waiting, we can always click off and see if there's something or someone more interesting somewhere else.

We don't write letters anymore. Does anyone remember what it's like to sit down at the table with a pen and paper, thinking about the things we want to tell our correspondent? Since letters are less frequent, we have to think about things over a longer span of time and respond more meaningfully.

Now we have email. We get on someone's "forward" list and get cut-and-paste inspirational stories or bouncing icons with quippy sayings. We get jokes. How is it "keeping in touch" to pass along impersonal information? It's more like one of those dreaded round-robin Christmas letters.

We no longer have to remember our friends' birthdays because we get an automated message to remind us. We get on-line and pick out some bouncing monkey or bouncing bunny, slip in a limp "happy birthday" and send it off. We've met our obligation. Eh?

We don't use the phone anymore. Sometimes I hunger for inflection, for tone of voice, for the sound of someone's laughter.

Instead, we get snippets on SMS, Twitter and Facebook. We get the title of the book someone is reading - or what song they have on at the moment. We know every time someone goes to Safeway. We know every time someone went out somewhere. We know the color of his or her couch. It is facile, unoriginal and consumptive.

This kind of cyber-crowding is really no different than being in an overly-crowded room. We scratch the surface and move on. We get bumped and jostled, facebooked and twittered. We want to breathe fresh air.


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