Comments on: What’s the Point of Twitter?

By: Diane

Diane — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:30:29 +0000

I wondered how you made that post on Mt. Jumbo. The only way I could think of was if you had your laptop with you, but I didn’t think it would work way up there and why would you want to carry a laptop along on a hike. Esp. considering your laptop is like your job and you were probably hiking to get away from your job for a while. Well, mystery solved.

I agree it’s nice to keep up with people I never would email on a regular basis like Angelique that I care about, but don’t really keep in touch with.

By: Sutton

Sutton — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:49:33 +0000

I could also add that my main reason for reactivating Twitter is not because it seems incredibly useful to me in itself, but because there is a way to use your phone via Twitter to update your Facebook status message, meaning I can post something real time such as the accomplishment of climbing Missoula’s Mt. Jumbo yesterday. Now, as to WHY I want to be able to do that, I don’t really know… There is a kind of excitement to me about user-generated content on the web (blogs, etc.) and the way these change the way we live and what we know about the world. I guess I just enjoy feeling like part of that in some small way.

By: Sutton

Sutton — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:46:58 +0000

Well, when you consider what KINDS of food are available, and that they are intended to be stuffed into your face while you race to your next errand, etc., you may be on to something.

To elaborate on the “what’s the point of Twitter,” etc., discussion, I would add that, given how much so many of us move around these days, it is a way to keep up casual aquaintanceships that would otherwise fall away after one has moved. I “follow” lots of people it would never occur to me to exchange lengthy correspondence with. It’s interesting that this means I often don’t know the larger things that are going on in their lives, but I can lend a hand with a small problem if they post about it. (E.g., “So and so is researching places to visit in Puerto Rico.”)

Maybe it’s an antidote for the disconnected lives so many of us lead.

By: Diane

Diane — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:21:36 +0000

Thanks for the explanation. That does help make sense of it.
The whale essay was superb. Even here in southern MD, those types of gas stations are rare. As mentioned, they all have food connected to them now. Hmm…..another reason why Americans keep getting fatter? You know, fill up the car, fill up the stomach, hungry or not?