Laura Is

When a tower of ungraded blue books sits on my coffee table mocking and shaming me, I have found it ever so beneficial to completely ignore the ungraded papers and instead use that time for catching up on all the technology that I've missed out on over the semester. Yes, it's high time that I learned about Twitter and text messaging. Priorities are a key to success.

Well, I'm about three years behind on the text messaging thing, but I haven't had any need for it. If I want to talk to my friends or hubby, I call them. I'm not meeting up with the kids at the Peach Pit on the spur of the moment. No one really needs to know where I am at every given moment. However, my 20 year old babysitter only communicates via texting. She doesn't answer phone calls or e-mails, so I had to learn. It was super easy and then I spent the rest of the week pestering everyone I know with messages. "what r u doing?"

I signed up for Facebook last summer during a Catch Up With Technology Procrastination Fest. I noticed that some of my friends were using twitter to up date their status, so I HAD to sign up for twitter and link it to Facebook. Maybe I will try to send a twitter via my cell phone today and link it to Facebook. I could blow hours of time with that one.

Twitter is social networking software. You key in a sentence or two about what you are doing. It is the equivalent of the status update on Facebook. I suppose that teenagers use Twitter and Facebook status lines in the same way that they use texting - to alert friends of meet up points and to nervously make sure that your friends don't forget you.

I'm amused by the 30 and 40 something use of twitter and facebook status. The best status announcements don't just say "I'm eating food at a restaurant." The best ones must convey irony, ennui, and oblique references to 80s music. "I'm eating day old sushi in Chinatown while considering setting up a Depeche Mode fansite." They aren't supposed to announce the really big things in your life, but the weird minor stuff. You aren't just "I'm eating a sandwich". You are "Assembling the best grilled cheese sandwich and declaring it king of all sandwiches."

I'm amused by the elegant use of a sentence. It's modern Haiku.

I actually don't update my status all that often, because it takes a lot of work to be clever and ironic, but I'm enjoying the status of others.

Comments

[Laura]

I'm addicted to twitter. I use it mostly to stay connected with people in my field and send updates about everything from articles I'm reading (yesterday discussing feminism) to what I'm having for lunch. I've discovered news items more quickly through twitter--like watching the U of Richmond lockdown via twitter. And I've used it to do small-scale collaboration--getting and sharing resources with others.

[Laura]

I'm addicted to twitter. I use it mostly to stay connected with people in my field and send updates about everything from articles I'm reading (yesterday discussing feminism) to what I'm having for lunch. I've discovered news items more quickly through twitter--like watching the U of Richmond lockdown via twitter. And I've used it to do small-scale collaboration--getting and sharing resources with others.

[Wendy]

I have Twitter but don't use it much. Some of my LJ friends use it more, and there's some sort of gadget that collects all the day's tweets and posts them to LJ, which is nice. I also have it set up to tweet via my AIM, which is linked to my Gmail/Google Chat, which means I only have to open my browser to get it to tweet at me.

But what I used Twitter for this past week was something way weirder: Twisney. Yes, I Twittered Disney via an Google-Map_mashup tool. I drove my family crazy texting to Twitter during every bit of down time. But I did it so my dad and sisters could keep up with what we were doing.

I also texted my sister from Fantasmic while we were waiting. The Disney shows are great but you always have to get there 45 minutes early and sit and waaaaaait.

[Doug]

"I'm enjoying the status of others"

status status competition...