{The Twitter Culture}

This seems to be the million dollar question for the citizens of cyberland, the lure of microblogging through the giant Twitter catched on like wildfire. And when celebrities started to tweet their hearts out, we- the normal, ordinary people got star struck and voila! we became twitterized overnight. You are dubbed as 'cool' if you have a twitter page and of course extra cool if you are a follower of John Mayer or Ashton Kutcher, they appear to be the dynamic duo icons of microblogging (free promotion too I reckon). Even I did not spare myself from the wonder of Twitter, however, after having been on it for a couple of months, I must admit that my interest quickly waned and I have neglected my account- including my followers. What is surprising to me is that even if I haven't been on it for months and months now, which means I aint interactive anymore, I still get some followers! Hmmm, maybe that is why Twitter clicks- it is by and large, decent exposure. Fair enough, this phenomenon suggests that people remain to be social animals, interested in what the other has to say and of course it provides a gateway for entrepreneurs to sell whatever it is they sell.  It isn't rocket science- it is a platform for business like most sites.

However, what actually turned me off from Twitter or microblogging in general, is the fact that I don't want to feel obliged to 'shout out' my thoughts every 5 minutes. Not only that- to post replies to your followers in order to keep the thread flowing is just too demanding! that requires time, plenty of it. I mean, we already have personal interaction on a daily basis, as well as blogging anyway and Facebook or Friendster or My Space...the list goes on, so why do we need to succumb to microblogging? what is the psychology behind it? are people lonelier than ever, that we have to get attention and reaction through Twittering? I do wonder.

Hmmm...any thoughts?