To tweet, or not to tweet: that is the question

Apologies to anyone who hates it when a Shakespeare quote is exploited for other purposes. You'll just have to deal with it. For me, the question isn't 'To be, or not to be...' but for the basis of this blog it's 'To tweet, or not to tweet...'. This sounds like a fun diversion from my usual topics, which it is... sort of.

I still don't really get 'Twitter'.

I 'get' Facebook (which for me is a love/hate relationship), I also 'get' blogging... clearly. Facebook is an anti-social 'social' tool, which I battle with week in, week out. Whereas blogging is much better as it is a more informative form of social media. Blogs are like websites, just updated more often.

But Twitter?

I have Twitter accounts for this, and my part-time business... but I only ever use them occasionally as if they were headlines of a newspaper. Or to direct 'people' to something. Or maybe promote something. Twitter, for me is an activity I feel as though I should be doing, as opposed to actually needing to do it. I go onto my Twitter accounts and read other people's tweets I am 'following', but all too often I am perplexed by what the fuck is going on. So this begs the questions, what IS the point of it?

I think there are far more interesting things to do other than Tweet. I go onto Twitter simply to promote my next blog, or maybe to say something profound. Other than that, I really have no interest in it. It's moving too quickly, and if you're following over 1,000 people... how the hell do you manage it?

Don't tell me you read EVERYTHING.

Twitter is another platform on which to overwhelm yourself with unnecessary information.

It's a popularity contest, without actually being popular. All I see is noise. An ever-bulging cyst on the internet. Words for words sake.

In a world where we need to have everything now, delivered to us in as few letters as possible, Twitter just seems to be to embodiment of this. Our concentration spans are worsening, and I only see Twitter as another means of reinforcing this concept. That we are too busy to read, listen or watch anything that takes up more than 3 seconds.

Just to clarify, 'tweeting' is not 'being'. Far from it. It is actually the complete opposite. To conclude this rant successfully, I need to make my intensions perfectly clear. 'To be' is to exist with purpose. 'To tweet' is to exist without purpose. That's why it's so beautifully ironic to use that quote and flip it on it's head.
:)