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Twittering
by Peary Perry | |
“I’m
going to drink some coffee.”
“I’m headed to the store.”
“Now I’m at the
gas station, buying some gas.”
“I think I’ll stop and get a sandwich.”
“When I get home I’m going to watch the news.”
Riveting isn’t it? Probably
not. But for millions of people around this planet, these are the kinds of messages
they receive each hour from their friends who do something called “Twittering.”
Twitter is a social messaging program that allows you or me to send these little
snippets about our lives out to all of our ‘friends’ who might think this is interesting.
Some movie star is in a race to see if he can accumulate one million friends on
his Twitter account. I hope he has a big house when it comes time for his New
Years party.
I met a friend of mine for coffee the other day. While we
were talking, I noticed that we were the only ones in the whole place who were
not on their computers or who were talking on their cell phones. We were actually
talking to each other face to face. I can remember when pagers first came out
and your status was determined by how many or how few pages you received. Folks
who wanted to appear important would actually pay someone to page them ever so
often, just so they could appear to be popular. Crazy.
Pay phones were
in their hey day. Always had lines waiting to use them. Now you’ll be lucky to
find one if you ever need to use one. The first cell phones were about the size
and weight of a good sized brick. Now they are the size of a credit card. You
use one to take pictures, make movies, use the internet, text messages and telephone
someone. One of my sons has a I-Phone with about 3,000 (maybe less) things on
it. One of the things he loves is some application that makes the phone sound
like a light saber from Star Wars. Why you would want this, I don’t know, but
it makes him happy. He thinks people who Twitter are nuts while waving his cell
phone around like he was Luke Skywalker. Different strokes for different folks.
Pagers
are out, cell phones are in. Everyone has one. I refuse to give money to the homeless
guys on the corner who are smoking cigarettes and talking on a cell phone while
holding up a sign that says….. “Totally broke….need help….love Jesus….will work
for food…” I need to be more sympathetic and forgiving; perhaps their mothers
gave them the phone? No way, they look too old to have mothers still living, besides
they always seem to have a dog…who has a dog when they are starving? I always
just drive to the closest hamburger place and buy them a sack of burgers and give
to them. Am I doing any good…? Who knows….I wonder if they Twitter? If so, it
would probably go something like this:
“Black Lexus….gave me a $20…..wohoo….”
“Foxy lady in a Jag gave me some great clothes”
“Dweb in a truck (that
would be me) gave me some burgers….Rover gets something to eat.”
Each
day I get a lot of e-mails, mainly junk stuff. Poems, jokes, money from Nigeria,
petitions, and chain letters. Most of the stuff I have to delete or just throw
away. I don’t have time to read all of it. But every once in a while I get a diamond
in that stack of trash. I get something from someone, somewhere in the world who
is thinking about me and sends me something worth reading and keeping. I treasure
these.
I suppose that’s what something like Twitter is, just a reminder
that someone, somewhere is thinking about us. Our days are long and our hours
are short. When we finally get time to ourselves each night it takes a lot of
effort to just reach out and tell our friends and family that we know they are
there and we are thinking of them. Thirty years ago, we didn’t have computers;
long distance calls were expensive…now we can Skype anyone in the world for free.
We can e-mail people as often as we like; it just takes a little learning to get
on a computer and doing it. Things change, communication changes. My dog (Buddy
Perry) has his own facebook page. He has more friends than I do.
I’m jealous,
but not going to get upset unless he starts to Tweet me. Then I’ll cut off his
cell phone privileges…dogs should not be allowed to talk on a cell phone. Makes
me wonder where he gets any money…maybe he’s working on the corners with those
other guys. I’ll have to check on this.
© Peary Perry
Comments go to pperry@austin.rr.com
Letters From North America
- April 29, 2009 column
Syndicated weekly in 80 newspapers
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