Michael Graeme joins the Twitterrati

I’ve been a follower of the development of computer technology for as long as there have been computers. My 1984 HND dissertation was on “the use of computers in the solving of problems in mechanical engineering” – oh, heady days – and was based upon the somewhat primitive computers of the day – including my own Sinclair Spectrum. The conclusions I drew back then were that computers had their uses but the engineer had to be discerning and not fall into the trap of specifying a computer’s use simply because it sounded sexy, when a pen and paper would yield a more efficient result.

I still measure the development of technology in these terms, and try to separate its true potential from its often overhyped promise. The early pioneers of the personal computer envisioned us using these things to control our home appliances, heating, security,… things that have yet to capture the public’s imagination, while things they never imagined – like the internet, and email – now dominate our workaday lives. I’m therefore always a bit slow in jumping on the next bandwagon, wondering first if it’s heading in the direction I’m interested in or not. I have a Facebook account, but admit I’ve not really made sense of this medium yet and can boast only one friend (thank you Marie). I guess writers of my kind are simply not gregarious enough to make use of its networking potential.

And Twitter?

Well, Twitter has been on my list of intrigues for a while now – for those of you not familiar with it, it’s like micro blogging – you upload a very short message to your Twitter account – 140 characters – called a tweet. You can do it from your computer, but also from your mobile ‘phone. Much of the early information that came out of Libya regarding its disintegration escaped the state media blackout and came to us via the tweets of ordinary souls swept up in the chaos. I found this deeply moving and impressive – information and communication in the hands of ordinary people shaping world events via a medium that had yet to turn even a dollar’s profit. At the other end of the scale we also have the great and the good getting their secretaries and PR minders to tweet their selective thoughts, or their carefully sanitized itineraries to their fanbase via that same medium. This is of less use of course, though transparent enough to the intelligent.

But what of the ordinary soul?

“I filled up my car with petrol today and it cost me £1.35/L” Good tweet? Interesting? Important? Hardly. There’s a lot of tweeting going on and in the great cacophony of sound, the humble tweet can seem rather pathetic. If you’re poetically inclined, you can massage your tweet into something resembling an Haiku, but really unless someone knows you’re there your profound, Zen-like Haiku is lost like so much noise in the background.

What use then is Twitter to the ordinary soul? Well,… if you have any kind of interests, you can follow the tweets of those who share your interests. In this way, logging in  to your Twitter account you can see at once what others in your field have stumbled across, enabling you to follow up useful leads on the internet – a bit like listening to gossip, I suppose. In practical terms I’ve found it focusses your web-surfing.

If you’re a writer there’s no reason not to tweet. Sure, no one will read it, but then who are you writing that personal diary for? It doesn’t matter. If it strikes you tweet it.