Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Twitter, Addiction and Me!

Facebook is the coolest thing on Internet… but only when Twitter is having some loading-glitch (that happens most of the times because of excess users traffic)! Twitter, as of now, is the most happening thing on Internet for lots and lots of people right now, including me. That goes without having to say that I’m addicted to it. I’m a teetotaler and acapnotic but the level of indulgence I exhibit on Twitter is out of my rationale. The last thing I was so addicted to was jaggery which helped me drill some of my finest molars.

For beginners who are new to Twitter (who are not a tweeples yet), let me tell you its time you roll on. I’m saying this because there is no other “invention” on Internet other than Twitter that has the power to bring personalities like Obama, Shah Rukh Khan, Oprah, Paulo Coelho and Queen Rania to a common platform (and thankfully, the list doesn’t end there) but because Twitter is not about these celebrities alone. It’s for all of us who ‘follow’ and get ‘followed’ and even ‘unfollow’ in some cases!

Twitter is in a commoner’s language, a mini-blogging site where a member can ‘tweet’ which means, type out any thing s/he wants, be it sentence or links of videos and songs, onto the 140 characters-limited-space! Now, this may sound crazy. Just 140 characters, that’s it. You dare to bring the powers, the famous faces of the world and then hand them just 140 characters limitation to express themselves. I guess, funny as it may sound but that’s precisely why Twitter is what it is today. It’s precise in its outlook and smooth in its real time functions that includes direct messaging, re-tweeting, uploading photos and so on.

As for me, Twitter has been a staple diet since 29th December 2008 when my dear friend Varun told me about it. Even today he regrets why he did that! That is so because he feels that Twitter has taken up my life and made me immobile (which is true if you consider that the only part of my body that had constant exercise since Dec’08 are my fingers!!). There are hardly people around me who like me being on Twitter as if it won’t function well without my presence on the timeline. I’ve faced severe repercussions in my office too where none other than my Manager himself blocked the site after he caught me tweeting to glory. But the addiction wasn’t to stop. It kept getting stronger and stronger.

Frankly speaking, the only reason I’m on Twitter is because of its spontaneity. Twitter provides me the opportunity to post any rubbish thoughts or quotes or website links or lyrics or verses or songs-I’m-listening-to or movies-I’m-watching blah blah blah. That’s one of the primal reasons why I adore Twitter. The other reason is the people I’ve befriended on it. They brighten me up (though my mom won’t agree!!). She says Twitter is for jobless or kaam-chors (lazy bones!!). My dad taunts me by saying, “How come you are never done with that application form?” referring to the 140-character-space box which I keep filling!

According to my brother, I was crazy to leave engineering amid my second year itself but was crazier to get hitched to Twitter. He even attributes my laziness and procrastinating endeavors to the “might” of Twitter! I used to be quite a regular blogger before I joined Twitter but now am reduced to chances of #FailWhale which means that Twitter is not loading up due to traffic and that’s what happened about half an hour ago or else this post wouldn’t have been possible!!

No matter what, Twitter is the way of the future and our present is just a bridge to that way so I believe we can cover it happily by tweeting from whatever source available, be it web or cellphone, as much as we like.

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