Feature: Twitterverse

By Sarah Benjamin

On first learning about the new social networking site, Twitter, I laughed. Who would possibly want to read posts written by other people about seemingly insignificant occurrences in their life? And better yet, who would take the time to post what they had for breakfast or why they hate wide ruled paper? I, for one, thought it might be the biggest colossal waste of time ever invented.

Ever a moderate, I signed up anyways, just to prove a point. I figured I had nothing to lose. I needed some sort of experience with this infamous application in order to lend some justification to my raves. So I made a username and a cute little page. I haughtily scrolled up and down the site, watching as tweets flew in. Some were as I predicted. But others were actually worth reading. It was crazily addictive. I turned to my page, ready to post something equally cool.
Five minutes later, I still didn’t know what to post. I wasn’t witty enough, wise enough, or interesting enough that I felt that any of my posts would be relevant.

But I began posting anyways, the first thing that came to my mind. There was a certain sense of validation, of importance, as I clicked “tweet!” on my screen. And there it went, my little message shooting across the technological atmosphere, colliding with the tweets of others. Others who were witty, wise, and interesting. Somehow, in that moment of imagined shoulder rubbing, I felt smarter. I felt like I was making some sort of impact. I was following big companies, making new friends, and finding people with similar interests.

Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t think I have become smarter, more funny or more interesting, per say, but I was pleasantly surprised at how neat of a tool Twitter turned out to be. I was soon finding other things on the internet worth looking at – articles, blogs, freebies – that I didn’t know existed. As I “followed” other people, they began to follow me. Me?

Twitter can easily go both ways though – a gateway or a black hole. It opens the doors to other people, other ideas, and even a few free books. It also seems to suck your time, attention, and maybe some of your life, into a virtual abyss from which only an Office Space-esque computer-mob-hit will free you from. My experience so far has been pretty good, though I still get annoyed when people post about their lunches, their crazy parties, or other inane things…but I do get a good laugh when Conan O’Brian posts something, or when Flashlight Worthy Reads gives a good recommendation I will give the book a second look. So I guess I’ll be here, carefully walking the edge between the gate or black hole, letting my tweets launch into the universe.

If you want to continue this talk, you can contact Sarah at sbenjamin@internationalbookmangament.com …or on Twitter: sbenji496