On being a Twit

"Twit" used to be one of the old Monty Python crew's favorite terms. It's peculiarly British sounding and just right for indicating a very silly person. Little did we know, when John Cleese used it in Python skits, that there was money in it.

Twitter, the bad haiku generator of social networking websites, has taken off in a way that would seem counter-intuitive when one considers its effects. Nevertheless, taken off it has, to the extent that I now have an impressive pile of newspapers at my feet, none more than a week old and each carrying an article about Twitter and its ramifications.

Barely three years from its inception, Twitter now has 30 million users— 30 million people who feel the somewhat constant need to communicate to "followers" whatever can be compressed into 140 characters per message. Few of these messages are pleas of "Come home now— garage on fire," but rather, "Traffic on I-95 a bitch 2day."

Instant gratification

Well, OK, people have been using e-mail and text messaging for such negligible communications for a decade now. Why the fuss about this particular vehicle?

The answer would seem to lie in the ability to reach many people instantly with a communiqué very often ill considered. This represents a form of progress: We have freed ourselves of the old dictum, "Think before you speak."

This remarkable new technology (1) allows you to bore people with the trivia of your life; (2) allows you to make an ass of yourself on a very large stage; and 3) provides a public record that you've been an ass in the past.

It should go without saying that no one except your newest lover would be interested in tweets such as, "Eating cheerios now." But Twitter appeals to business people who see an opportunity to reach potential customers instantly in a non-traditional way: " '65 Mustang, mint-like restoration"“ $7,000"“ Ralph's Ford, Marlton "“ NOW"— even if the Ford is actually selling for $12,000.

The Shaquille O'Neal solution

Professional athletes in particular apparently perceive Twitter as a way to bypass cynical sportswriters and communicate directly with their fans. Thus, Shaquille O'Neal deflected criticism from Yahoo Sports by telling his reported million-plus "followers," "O my yahoo sports wrote a bad article abt me, I'm gonna cry, yea rt, wanna kno the real its comn frm my shaqberry. I'm the reporter now."

Or consider our old friend, the former Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens. The June 5 Inquirer reported that Owens, now playing for Buffalo, had sent a real estate agent to check out a possible domicile for him there, and the agent returned with the message that the owners would rather not rent to Owens because "he tends to cause a little commotion wherever he goes." Owens responded by Tweeting: "i'm happy & excited about being n B-Lo! it's jus sad that people still think way they do n 2009!!"

Also this month, the St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa was reported to have sued Twitter because somebody posing as him on the website had written, "Lost 2 of 3, but we made it out of Chicago without one drunk driving incident or dead pitcher." This Tweet in effect reminded the world that La Russa was once arrested in his car for sitting asleep and intoxicated at a green light and that a month later one of his pitchers was killed driving drunk. (Twitter reportedly settled with La Russa for his legal costs, a donation to a charity, and a promise to work on the problem of impostor twits.)

Woe to the college English teacher

To be sure, armchair humanists have decried the decline in quality human communication that results from instant communication technology at least since the advent of TV. I will simply point out that every semester since I returned to full-time college-level teaching three years ago, usually following the first writing assignment turned in, I have had to remind my classes that formal writing does not involve sentences like, "u woodnt b-leev what happnd to me this w-end."

More serious is the decline of actual human face-to-face communication. I once followed one of my students into a classroom and heard her say into her cell phone (tweet-like), "I'm going into class now. I'll call you after." Five seconds after class ended, she pulled out her phone and began punching.

I'm afraid Twitter is merely the newest of the oxymoronic communication vehicles. Its motto might well be: Always in Touch, Not Saying Much.