What A Complicated World Wide Web We Weave

Twitter me this, twitter me that. Do you tweet? I never imagined I’d ask someone that question. Apparently the trick on twitter.com is to give people a meaningful update in 140 characters or less, rather than sending out daily messages that say “I’m so tired. I need a vacation. Have you seen my shoes?”

You can follow TV characters for entertainment. You can follow colleagues for shared industry information. You can follow friends if you actually like hearing about their random “here’s what I’m doing this second” thoughts. Whatever floats your boat. The problem we discovered today…is that you can’t stop anyone else from following you! Enter possible cyber-stalkers slash creepy-70s-porn-starish tweeters who can choose to follow you at any time.

Twitter is getting hotter, probably because “all the old people have ruined Facebook.” Yeah...I think that would be me...and my friends...and definitely my husband. I think my generation is enamored with the possibilities of the technology, but we're too busy and jaded to use it the way the kids do. We have to teach each other how to forward quizzes. And for some reason...a lot of our husbands are kind of addicted to it. Mine has about 200 Friends...many of them people he met when he was seven years old and hasn't seen since. I'm not kidding! A few of my husband's Friends have actually turned into those pseudo-cyber-stalkers. But I guess if you’re going to have a stalker, digital is the best flavor to get.

Some of my Friends have just stopped checking their Facebook pages. Some of them still just don't get it or don’t care about it. Some throw sheep and fish and garden plants at me fairly regularly. My favorite thing is the flair. Since we’re too old to put plastic buttons on our backpacks/briefcases (like I did as a child in the 70s), at least we can put virtual ones on our Facebook page. It’s a nice flashback to my youth, plus they’re much funnier (and sometimes naughtier) than anything my mom would have let me buy when I was twelve!

I find Facebook interesting, but primarily as a voyeuristic way to look at my Friends' (sometimes embarrassing) vacation pictures or laugh at one friend making fun at another on their walls. Does that make me a bad person? (If you say yes, I’m going to block you from my “Friend” list. )

Which reminds me…whenever I do something, like step on my daughter’s foot, I say to her “I’m sorry,” and she replies “That’s okay. You’re still my best friend.” I guess our whole lives, we’re looking for friends and hoping they won’t disappear because of something we’ve accidentally done to them. But the digital world has added a new wrinkle. I only have about 50 Friends, and I'm still trying to plot how I can get rid of the half I don't care about, without hurting anyone's feelings. (Don't worry - you're not one of those Friends. I promise). I guess ignoring them online is a lot easier than pretending my mom won’t let me play with them after school, like I did in the old days.

Kids today literally need these networks to function in their social lives. My generation uses it more as entertainment (funny videos and quizzes rock) and as a way to keep at least a fleeting attachment to all those people we cared about once upon a time but have lost daily touch with. Sort of like how the "telephone" functioned back when I was young(er)! It makes me wonder what the hell my kids will be doing to keep in touch 30 years from now.

It’s a kick trying to figure out how to use these technologies for marketing purposes, particularly navigating across their constantly changing landscapes. Personally, I'm pretty much over Facebook…but now I’m on to Twitter...look out...