A fellow Quinnipiac University alumnus recently blogged about Twitter, and how easy and convenient this social networking site is. "It has really changed my life," he wrote.Fine, I said to myself. I've never understood what this is, so let's try it.
Friends have described it to me as "Facebook status updates on steroids" or "people constantly writing updates and nothing else." (for those of you not familiar with Facebook, a status update is where people can write, as often as they wish to in any given day, what they are doing. The site gives you "Viktoria is..." and you fill in the blank. It can be anything from "am sick of work" to "is petting a kittycat.")
So I signed up. I logged in. I found out that some of my friends were already on it. Then I wrote my first phrase - "is now on Twitter" - and I waited. What's next? Apparently, nothing.
After a while I realized that since I had no "followers" - people who read my site - I was writing for nobody. And the people I was "following" hadn't written anything in days.
When posting desperate message on Facebook about how I hate Twitter and how pointless it is, I got all sorts of advice. One friend wrote "you have to join a group, like writers, and then they can help you out with advice." Another friend at work said "You have to follow some celebrities you like - the actual celebrities on there - that's the only fun about Twitter. They actually write what they are doing and you get to read it."
I had no interest in following celebrities. I couldn't even think of anyone I wanted to search for. Finally, one name came to mind: Bryan Adams. He was there - I found him. Today, I added Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Bynes and Cesar Millan - the Dog Whisperer.
Twitter policy seems to dedicate that if someone signs up to follow you, you should sign up to follow them, but I have no idea why anyone would want to read about my day with the cats. Oh, and you are also limited to a certain number of characters.
I guess that's about it. Well, I'm giving it a week. If I'm still not into it - yeah, I was already sick of it after a day - then I'll just shut it off and never look at it again. For now, you can find me here (although I've protected my updates so you have to ask permission first to become a "follower.")
