Writer Doesn't Get Twitter

In “I won’t Twitter my life away,” Leonard Pitts echoes the feelings of many who don’t see Twitter beyond “What are you doing?”

He writes, “In the first place, you have better things to do. In the second, I am not that interesting. No one is.”

I agree.

But Twitter offers much more. Yes, people tell you what they’re doing right this minute. I don’t care if you’re shopping at the grocery store or washing your car.

Twitter provides a water cooler to the lonely freelancer. Yes, you can meet people and make friends on Twitter. Intelligent ones with interests ranging from politics and books to intranet and medical industries. Many Twitterers meet in person.

Twitter leads to great shopping deals, book recommendations, and improving your writing skills by learning how to say a lot in 140 characters.
I didn’t always feel this way. When I first heard about Twitter and checked it out, I had the same thoughts as Mr. Pitts. My life wasn’t that interesting except for the time I went skydiving.

Many Twitter fans say they didn’t buy into Twitter right away. To benefit from Twitter, you must interact meaningfully with others. This conversation leads to a wonderful post on great books with 200 pages or less.

merylkevans: What’s the best short book (<200 pages) you’ve ever read? Can be fiction or not.

Other recent conversations cover the arbitrary editing and deleting of articles in Wikipedia, cochlear implants, a new web-based application that integrates with your cell phone and even Pitts’ article (so he should be thankful he gets a little link love out of this from the very source he insulted) and several people Tweeted back:

BethHarte @merylkevans You’re right Leonard Pitts doesn’t get Twitter. The fact is a lot of great networking is done on Twitter.

redcrew @merylkevans To learn more about Twitter, perhaps we can point Leonard Pitts to #twestival, #sandiegofire, and #hfhor

RonPloof @merylkevans I do agree with one thing that he said in the article. He’s not that interesting 🙂

Do you see a single “What are you doing?” mention? Find the right people and you’ll get much more than “life narrators.” Instead, you discover intelligent discussions without little bias getting in the way such as how we look and dress and how we speak.

I have a deaf accent because I was born profoundly deaf. In fact, here’s another conversation with a fellow Texan I’ve gotten to know in the past month:

roberthruzek: Wonderful! May I tell you about it sometime? I can hook you into a webinar that’ll explain everything.

merylkevans: Can’t do webinars. Deaf.

roberthruzek: Gee, never knew that about you.

So Twitter prevents people from judging me the minute I open my mouth. It’s a sad and true fact that people automatically think I’m not bright because of how I sound or I ask them to repeat something. It’s the same prejudice that hits people with a southern drawl.

You don’t have to try Twitter. Just understand that Twitter offers something valuable to people who use it on a professional and personal basis.

Twitter is what you make of it.