Following from what was a weepy post a week ago, I’ve decided to stop using Twitter once I reach 2000 updates (about 150 to go). I remember the evening I started using it, sometime in November 2006 when I was staying at Ben’s on Herengracht in Amsterdam. He sent me an invite and I looked at this thing and huffed and puffed (I would start working for Jaiku a few months later) going “I don’t get it”. He,of course knew better, he always does.
3 years down the line, I’ve had great fun, I’ve kept in touch with people I’d only met once, sometimes not at all. I’ve kept in touch with the latest internet memes, even the ones that only last half a day, I’ve kept in touch with the news, and more importantly I’ve kept in touch with what Matt does during his days at work in lalaland.
But I want more. Living in London, I’ve realised that I need to be much more active about meeting and seeing people in the flesh, remembering that there is a world out there, that I can just pick up the phone and call people and take news, have a coffee, have a great conversation, build real relationships, or at least ones that feel real to me. Twitter has made me lazy about those relationships.
My metaphor for using Facebook was bumping into an old friend in the street and not having anything to say to each other past the first 30 seconds. Twitter feels to me now like walking into a giant party full of people you kinda know, kinda not, some of which you’re only mildly interested in, but all of them speaking really loudly. Matt will tell you I hate those kinds of parties, they intimidate me, and now so does Twitter. So I’m leaving the party behind.
I’m glad the entire world seems to have hopped on the bandwagon, those guys deserve it. It’s just not for me anymore. I’ll try to come back to my blog, to writing and exploring an idea fully.
I won’t close my account, I simply will stop updating it and will only occasionally read it. I think I’ll make a lovely newspaper thing out of these 3 years of my life in a space that has evolved and changed so much, while I’ve been changing too. Maybe I’ll give it to my mom or something.
The ways you have just described Facebook and Twitter (on-the-street encounter vs. buzzy party) are spot on. Twitter does have those (increasingly frequent) moments where current event chat takes over, and you sometimes just have to grit your teeth and reach for another cocktail while the discussion of the Oscars goes on, and on, and on… until people go back to discussing their lunches and why they want to stab their cubicle-mate in the eye.