I haven’t been using Twitter very much these past few weeks. Just haven’t had much reason, or time to post updates. Also, the thought of posting “doing citation count”, and “still doing citation count”, and “still…” depressed me no end. I’ve much preferred to attend a conference vicariously, and learn about everyone’s hectic and interesting lives. I’ve been surprised at how much I’ve been enjoying that aspect of Twitter. As David Weinberger says: “Twitter is about the intimacy of details.”
I switched off phone updates, though, as it was very distracting to have my mobile phone constantly vibrating throughout meetings, but I might switch it on again for a while. I’ve been getting my updates via RSS, but that’s always got a slight delay to it.
I haven’t got that many Twitter friends at all (only 19!) but I don’t particularly mind as it’s still relatively easy to keep up with that number of friends. I could have more, but I haven’t added quite a few people because I didn’t recognise them at all (even after pondering their profiles) and found myself disconcerted at the thought of adding complete strangers. And yet I have added a few people who live here in Perth, whom I have not met. For some reason I like the fact that I have these ‘friends’ who live in my hometown. I suppose we do have something in common!
For a while after I started blogging, every time I wandered around the city, I looked at passing strangers and wondered if they blogged. Now I wonder if they twitter.
A bit later: M reminded me of this cartoon from Hugh MacLeod which says it all, really: