What Twitter is Good For II

Can someone let @pghrugbyangel I need to talk to her? KTHXBAI.

Seriously, I use the DM feature of Twitter quite a bit. I DM’ed the above tweep to see if she can babysit for me next Friday. And then I quit Twitter, and I haven’t emailed her yet. Ooops.

Oh, DM = Direct Message. It’s kind of Twitter’s IM feature. (Again, for my dad: IM = instant messaging, akin to chat. It’s like instant e-mails, back and forth. Oh, never mind.)

So every now and again, I DM someone. Do they want some gluten-free chocolate chip cookie dough (part of my daughters’ daycare fundraiser)? What time were we going to meet? Can you babysit for me on Friday, at 6 p.m.?

I don’t have to remember e-mail addresses or cell phone numbers. (How lazy is THAT?) I don’t have to know their last name, even! (Insert your own inappropriate joke here.)

But now I have to go all the way into my e-mail, find an address, put a subject line in, type a message, and send it. Instead of the two-step method that is Twitter.

So, not only has my attention span been shortened, but I can’t even be bothered to e-mail (or, even more medieval, call) someone.

How pathetic is that?

Plus there’s the whole waiting for them to e-mail or call back thing. Twitter: another sign of the culture of immediate gratification.