Encouraged by a team of young experts, I have begun using Twitter.
Sometimes I wonder if ODs like me are missing something. Then I realize that kids today are maybe a bit too attached to their computers and iPhones, constantly texting each other. Maybe separation anxiety for them is truly a problem of major proportions!
But loads of people Tweet. Hell, even President Obama does it, so what are ODs missing?
Let's see if we can gain some perspective.
What's the difference between emails and Tweets?
Well, both are for communication, but email is distributed to an individual or a designated group of recipients. There is a modicum of privacy in email, excepting in brokerage houses and banks! Tweets are different in that they are posted for everyone to see. There's no privacy on Twitter. What you say is hanging out there in the breeze.
In comparative terms, if a written letter is a brick colonial, then email is sort of like a mobile home. Carrying the analogy a bit further, and using a visual representation, Twitter is more like this...
To coin a phrase, "It's the same, but different." On Twitter everyone's messages reside on the same plot of internet real estate.
Nonetheless, one can't deny that this social network resonates with a large block of humanity.
Started just 5 years ago this month, Twitter now boasts over 190 million (and 1, counting me) accounts . Estimates suggest that users generate over 65 million tweets per day.
Let’s put that figure into context.
About 65 million minutes is roughly 130 years.
So, 65 million minutes ago it was 1881, and Edison’s electric light bulb was introduced.
James A. Garfield was assassinated and Chester A. Arthur succeeded him. (Neither Tweeted).
The Barnum & Bailey Circus debuted, and the American Red Cross was founded.
Pablo Picasso was born and Benjamin Disraeli died about then.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra gave its first concert and Holmes meets Watson for the first time in 1881.
And a very famous gun fight broke out in Tombstone, Arizona just about 65 million minutes ago.
Maybe some ODs like me will be pushed onto Twitter. I suspect, however, that for many other ODs, Tweets will continue to be something they only recognize in field sports.
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