Twitter – Page 8 – Andy Rowell

I started experimenting with Twitter.

Follow me if you are interested:

In short, with Twitter you can update people by answering the question, "What are you doing?" in 140 characters and people can follow what you are doing. The fun is seeing in real time what those you are following are up to and those who follow you can know what you are doing.

In the hierarchy of quality writing, Twitter is near the bottom, just above text messaging and instant messaging.

Nobel Prize literature
Published material
Graduate papers
Undergraduate papers
Blogging
High school papers
Elementary school papers
Twittering
Instant Messaging
Text Messaging

My first impression is that it is pretty narcissistic practice and a waste of time but I am still experimenting.

nar·cis·sism
–noun

1.
inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity.

2.
Psychoanalysis. erotic gratification derived from admiration of one's own physical or mental attributes, being a normal condition at the infantile level of personality development.

To clarify, I don't think the people who do it are more shallow than anyone else. I just think the dynamics of the technology do not lend themselves to quality relationship-building or quality reflection. The same also applies to Facebook (which I also do a little) and blogging. Read books! Interact with human beings in the flesh!

Still, often my blog has greased the wheels to have good face-to-face significant conversations with people and has made me a better writer. Will I be better informed about the world outside of my study carrel at Duke's library because of these technologies? Probably. Will I be better able to get connections to write and teach? Probably. I have already done a lot more writing because of the exposure my blog gives me. Does this technology give me practical reminders of why I am doing this doctoral work? Probably.

I think David Swanson is right in the comments when he says that Facebook and Twitter supplement his relationships with his congregation because many of them are in their twenties and use these tools. As for me, my Facebook and Twitter friends have almost no relationship to my primary day-to-day relationships. Facebook was more useful for me when I used at Taylor University as a professor.

Wisdom in using these technologies is needed.

I will end with this quote by Neil Postman in 1998, author of Amusing Ourselves to Death,

In the past, we experienced technological change in the manner of sleep-walkers. Our unspoken slogan has been "technology über alles," and we have been willing to shape our lives to fit the requirements of technology, not the requirements of culture. This is a form of stupidity, especially in an age of vast technological change. We need to proceed with our eyes wide open so that we many use technology rather than be used by it.

Below are nine posts by church leaders I follow who use Twitter. They can explain its "benefits" and how it works. Below that I have listed the people I am "following."