serious questions for LJ friends who use Twitter

[greenshadows]

Hi. I promise: I'm trying not to be hostile, I just have real questions about what this thing is and why I shouldn't see it as an affront to "normal" LJ posts

Comments

[instynct]

Twitter doesn't seem much different than group chat. When I was at IBM years ago we used group chat for team communication for web simulcast events, like the US Open. It was an efficient way for the team members at different sites to coordinate without resorting to cumbersome headsets

[greenshadows]

Some good points, B. - thank you! I mostly agree on the social stuff. Gotta say, however, that the primary age group I'm seeing it manifest with are in their 30s and 40s - it's not the 20-somethings so much. Then again, who's ON my flist for the most part?...so I've got no good data on that, really.

[instynct]

For 16 year olds that much peer connection to gossip and what people are thinking is like crack. Its actually changing the way the next generation interacts. The running joke of this new generation is that they wake up every morning and then call their friends to know how they should feel.

As for 30 somethings using it. All I can say is they must have a lot of free time at their jobs to screw off.

[geeklibrarian]

"As for 30 somethings using it. All I can say is they must have a lot of free time at their jobs to screw off."

I'm a 40-something, don't screw off at work and use twitter. It all depends on how you choose to use it. I interact daily with a very active open source software community and would miss it severely if it ever went away.

[ravenlaughing]

I'm 38, I use twitter, and no, I don't have a lot of time at my job to screw off. God forbid I should actually say hi to some friends on my barely existant work breaks some days.