There’s a little tête-à-tête occurring in the blogosphere (namely Kim Werker’s blog) and about, as I’ve so lovingly coined the argument, “” on Twitter and blogs in general that is. I’m baffled as to why the knitters are representin’ but the “hookers” are a virtual no-show. Twitter is, after all, microblogging, a great way for those of us with short attention spans and dull hooks to get our point across quickly on topics of interest, especially those of us with busy lives.
I was curious so I posted on and also threw my name onto the pile of Twitterers listed over at Kim responded on her blog talking about blogs in general, which I’ll get back to in Part 2 of this topic. I feel they are related, but still separate issues, so I’ve broken them down as such.
Here a Tweet, There a Tweet:
I'm obsessed with my phone, can you tell?
was from someone at CLF who simply said that they just couldn’t do another community. They were already embroiled in several online communities and falling short on keeping up with their Facebook account. I considered this response pretty neutral. They weren’t outwardly against it, just not seeing how they could fit it into their lives.
I get it. Being involved in online communities takes up time. Not everyone has a lot of time, especially if they have kids. Gotcha. That isn’t me, though. Never has, and never will be. I’m pretty vocal on my jubilation in not having kids. I’ll save that for another post though. I digress…
- and this one was truly negative – came from someone over at Crochetville who characterized themselves as a “curmudgeon” stating:
“And I don’t know why I have to be subjected to hearing all this trivia myself while I’m browsing in a store, trying on clothes in a dressing room (a few time the caller has had her speaker phone on loud), a bookstore perusing books (where it should be library-quiet), a public restroom stall (privacy would be nice there), or a doctor’s waiting room (between TV and cells, there’s no reading while you wait anymore).”
She goes on to list all the places that she feels she’s subjected to listening to all this unwanted activity. And she ends with this caveat:
“Back in the day, we thought that in the future “Big Brother,” the government, would rob us of our privacy, but it’s turning out to be other people doing that in a different fashion than we imagined.”
Where to start with this. I can’t say I can completely relate to this. I think the person in question has the wrong take on what blogging and micro-blogging is all about. Unless you can explain to me how you know people are sharing every last thought of theirs online, then you can’t be allowed to speak for everyone; you can’t know if people are sharing every last thought. But I think I’m bringing semantics to an argument that wasn’t intended to be about logic. So I can let that go.
I think I was more taken aback by the notion that all this technology has somehow intruded into this person’s daily life as though that was the intention behind it all: to be intrusive. To me, it seemed as though they were taking it so personally as opposed to the other way around. It was designed to inform, enhance, enlighten, engage, and otherwise join communities of people together that might not otherwise converse. So yeah, I find it interesting that this person thinks places like Twitter are about being intrusive as opposed to inclusive. I can chalk it up to a generational gap though.
I live on the computer. Someday, I just might crawl in there and stay for good!
I think they’re confusing a lot of the technology and Twitter is getting the bad reputation for it. I agree that when you go to a library, it should be quite. Turn your phones off. Same thing goes for a movie. I get it and I agree 100%. Those are social norms that go beyond norms but have become a part of the written rule book of life. You’ll get asked to turn your phone off if it repeatedly rings in a library. And the opening shots on screen before a movie ask you explicitly to turn off your phone. It’s rude. Gotcha. What does that have anything to do with sharing one liners with other Twitterers? I’m confused as to how it bothers her if I’m at the doctor’s office sending off a one-liner to my fellow Twitterers telling them I managed to get my arse to the doctor without collapsing. That somehow ruins and intrudes on her privacy?
(shrugs shoulders)
Again, probably a generational gap issue.
Part 2 (Blogging) and Part 3 (The Wrap Up) Coming…
What the curmudgeounly commenter said seems somewhat related to when people demand that nobody ever say anything offensive because someone might hear and get offended. Change the channel, unsubscribe from the blog, don’t join Twitter. These things don’t have to be any part of your life if you don’t want them to be. In a way, these online services are far less intrusive than other people’s use of cell phones, because you really can avoid them entirely.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to Parts 2 and 3. And thanks for the Crochet Me book cameo!
Oh, I meant *curmudgeonly*. Nice spelling, Kim.
I hear it as a resistance to and resentment of our culture being changed by the internet at all!
I like ‘internety’ things (a Palin word?) so I wondered why it took *me* so long to try out Twitter: I just didn’t want to learn yet another new alien revolutionary thing until I had the attention span to focus and the extra time to be sucked. It’s funny that Twitter is the simplest of all the new internety things I’ve learned. Really just frees everything up including my time and attention. Not a timesuck, not alien, not complicated, surely the direction in which the web is headed.
For me, it’s as others have said on Ravelry, a question of priorities. I am keeping up with Ravelry, update my own blog and read quite a lot of blogs, too. I have tried to subscribe to some twitter feeds without actually being on it myself, but it was just too much too keep up with. I don’t go on Crochetville any more either because I don’t have the time to be everywhere.
That said, you all are making me feel like I need to go on Twitter now. And just the other night, a couple of real life non crafty friends made me feel like I needed to be on Facebook, too, in order to know what they were talking about…..
HAH! Resistance to change…ah well!
I see a huge difference to blogging and twittering to the obnoxious, insecure cell phone culture
LOL…And I’m a young cranky thing 
Checking internet and text messages is one thing, louid phone calls is rude no matter where you are at! LOL
And the new form of library isn’t as quiet as it once was, though cell phones are discouraged if you have to shout to speak… Believe me our new library is a place where folks gather to meet, shoot the breeze as well as find books and use computers
I’m loving it. And that’s from someone who grew up in the hallowed halls of a Carnegie Library 
Why don’t crocheters blog and tweet, and do websites? Until 2005 I never THOUGHT to search the web for crochet related things
It was just something I did, and I didn’t use patterns so why look for patterns? Or information?
I think we need to work on that
Just now getting to reply to you all:
Kim: I think her comment about Twitter et al. was that the intrusive technology was following her to places she didn’t want it to be, and not the converse.
Vashti: YES! I agree. Not a huge time suck. And you can be as much or as little engaged in it as you like without feeling guilty that you’re leaving it behind.
Julia: There is so much engaging social media out there now that it’s hard to find which ones fit into your lifestyle. I’ve done a lot of course correcting as I invite new ones into the fold. I think it comes down to a matter of what you place value on. I place a lot of value on friendships so FB is a place I’ve spent more time on lately. I have friends I don’t get to see and never talk to, but with FB, I get to see snapshots of what they’re up to. That way when the Christmas/Holiday card comes at the end of the year, I don’t feel like I’ve missed out completely in their lives. So I’m very happy I joined.
Laurie: It is interesting to think back to my first time searching the web for crochet stuff. For me, that was maybe 5 years ago. I, like you, never even thought to look online to see what people were doing with crochet. I used the internet for research in college and to check email and read the news. And that was pretty much it. I never equated the computer to fun time, only work. As well, I don’t doubt that it’s a generational thing to only consider computers as work-related, at least 5 – 10 years ago anyways. I think you might be onto something and I’m wondering how to change that mindset for crochet.
It makes me wonder if there needs to be more of a connection made at yarn stores, at festivals, at any other social gathering place that crochet is in the mix. You know, something that suggests, “Hey? Did you have a great time at this gathering/festival/whatever? There are other places online that you can get your crochet fix while at home. Check out these sites…” (Although I could see yarn stores not wanting that connection to be made. I guess their thing is to get people out of their homes and into their shops). All of this is making me wonder how we communicate that effectively….
Honestly? I think the person is just out of the loop as far as all the techno-speak. If someone does not want to be subjected to Twitter, or Facebook or Ravelry or what-have-you, they’re well within their rights to just NOT turn the computer on. I think this person just does not KNOW what Twitter is.