Obviously since I am “out for the summer” I also will feel a little more leisure time for blogging! So expect more posts!

 

And, with more time, comes new fads and ways to fill your time. Enter “Twitter”.

 

I’d been hearing about it from various sources, a podcast I was listening to, an article here or there. But, I never really knew what it was about or why I’d ever want to get an account.

 

 

One of the promotional testimonials on the website reads. “If you aren't familiar with Twitter, it is one of those things, like MySpace, that sounds totally ridiculous and stupid when you first hear about it. But once you start using it, you realize how much fun it is.”

 

 

Whatever you’re doing, the idea is that you post your activity to your Twitter homepage via the web, phone, or instant messager. Everyone else you know will also post their activities and you will all be able to keep up with each other.

 

Here is an excerpt from “Wired” the magazine, on the meaningful community Twitter creates: “When I see that my friend Misha is "waiting at Genius Bar to send my MacBook to the shop," that's not much information. But when I get such granular updates every day for a month, I know a lot more about her. And when my four closest friends and worldmates send me dozens of updates a week for five months, I begin to develop an almost telepathic awareness of the people most important to me.

It's like proprioception, your body's ability to know where your limbs are. That subliminal sense of orientation is crucial for coordination: It keeps you from accidentally bumping into objects, and it makes possible amazing feats of balance and dexterity.

Twitter and other constant-contact media create social proprioception. They give a group of people a sense of itself, making possible weird, fascinating feats of coordination.

For example, when I meet Misha for lunch after not having seen her for a month, I already know the wireframe outline of her life: She was nervous about last week's big presentation, got stuck in a rare spring snowstorm, and became addicted to salt bagels. With Twitter, I never actually race out to meet a friend when they report their nearby location; I just note it as something to talk about the next time we meet.

It's almost like ESP, which can be incredibly useful when applied to your work life. You know who's overloaded — better not bug Amanda today — and who's on a roll. A buddy list isn't just a vehicle to chat with friends but a way to sense their presence. Are they available to talk? Have they been away? This awareness is crucial when colleagues are spread around the office, the country, or the world. Twitter substitutes for the glances and conversations we had before we became a nation of satellite employees.

So why has Twitter been so misunderstood? Because it's experiential. Scrolling through random Twitter messages can't explain the appeal. You have to do it — and, more important, do it with friends. (Monitoring the lives of total strangers is fun but doesn't have the same addictive effect.) Critics sneer at Twitter as hipster narcissism, but the real appeal of Twitter is almost the inverse of narcissism. It's practically collectivist — you're creating a shared understanding larger than yourself.”

 

So can Twitter help me be a better pastor? If all my kids were on it, would I be able to care for them better? I have around 70 kids in my youth group, and it’s hard to keep up with all of them face-to-face. So who knows, this may be something great. Or a waste of time. We’ll see.

 

And maybe you’d like to check it out too? :) Happy Twittering.