I Agree with Kanye West. Twittering Sucks.

There is something that is happening in America and the world. I'm pretty positive that this is a bad thing. It's an outgrowth of what you are reading right now: weblogs. That's right. First there were weblogs and personal web pages, then we started getting instant messaging, then phone SMS texting, then "social networking" like MySpace and Facebook, and now "Twitter".

In this progression, it now becomes possible for you to notify more and more people of every little ridiculous and personal action you take in your life. And those that subscribe to social networking, and now Twitter, have become passive voyeurs ala the ill-fated movie "The Truman Show" starring famous funnyman Jim Carrey.

This trend really perplexes me. As an example, my wonderful daughter Heather has a Blackberry Storm (as do I). The difference between our two phones? She gets text messages at the rate of several per hour well into bedtime. And what confuses me even more is that she frequently responds to those messages.

I have asked her why her generation feels the need to let the world know her current mood in two, three or four character "emoticons", such as happy :) or surprised :0 or goofy :p or dull |-(. Or, BFF (Best Friend Forever), ROFL (Rolling on Floor Laughing), etc. She says that her friends like to know how she's feeling and she likes to know when her friends are :( or >:(.

I suspect that for some, a virtual hug or shout-back may be the only thing keeping them from being alone. On the other side of the coin I wonder whether this electronic coccoonish buzz that surrounds us actually is resulting in a real distancing between people. Why go and visit a friend when a lazy and effortless text message will work? Can you really get genuine human contact through 166 character SMS text messages? Isn't Twitter just a new form of casual spam, the primary difference being that most of those who Twitter aren't trying to sell you something?

For myself, I cherish those times where I do not have any access to any electronic paging device or telephones. I do NOT feel the need to be a virtual reality exhibitionist and I have even less desire to be a virtual voyeur. Whatever happened to time out for ourselves to tie flys, build a chair, mow the yard (I love that smell) or sit outside my front door on my patio bench and watch the Sonoran desert sky sunset fade from spectacular golden-red to lavendar to purple to star-dusted black, with the only interruptions the happy "Good evenings" of my neighbors as they take their evening walks with their dogs or kids.

So when Kanye West ranted about Twitter yesterday, I realized that a famous hip-hop performer and I can actually have something in common: A sincere belief that being connected to everybody all the time is F****** stupid.