Current Song - Barefoot on the Beach (Michael Franks)
I have noticed that Twitter is gaining in popularity. However, it just isn't appealing to me.
Probably the main reason is because of my profession. Journalism pretty much means I am expected to write sentences perfectly. So I am less likely to use "text language" and I almost always use capital letters, periods, commas and even semicolons whenever needed. I have a feeling that once I start to type in shorthand, then it will carry into my journalism writings by habit.
I will never understand the use of hashtags (#) and at (@) symbols. They seem like things that have the possibility of carrying over into spoken conversation, just like how people use text language in everyday conversation. I would rather use a system that people both young and OLD can understand, such as normal vocabulary and complete sentences.
Probably the most famous example of all of this is the metric mixup failure of the Mars Climate Orbiter, and the use of conflicting math with metric and english systems.
In addition, the typing of "tweets" on my phone is tedious, since my phone has a querty pad with a "shift" button to get symbols and numbers. The toggling back and forth is ridiculous and time-consuming.
Many sportswriters use twitter to provide updates of games. I find this time-consuming. I also find texting people about scoring updates back and forth to be tedious. I would rather make detailed notes on my notepad for when I have to type up my piece. To sum it up, the more I tweet and text during games, the more my article will suck.
But that's not the biggest reason why I am shying away from Twitter.
The real reason is because ... I am not interesting enough.
I know almost everyone I know thinks I am a boring person. I just know it. I try NOT to be boring around people, but sometimes it just doesn't materialize.
The things I do, the thoughts I think, and the interests that I'm interested in just don't mesh with almost all of the people that I know. Because of this, people find me to be weird. Because my interests and such are different than others, I can't find the gumption to converse and therefore am shy.
The condition that I have (Asperger's) involves a centering around a particular interest. This particular interest, as noted by others, is high school sports. I am so interested in high school sports to the point where I am unable to make steady conversation with those I already know whom also enjoy high school sports. It all has to do with their limits of interest: people from Sterling tend to only be interested in Sterling athletics with small tabs on the rest of the NI Big 12 West Division; people from Rock Falls tend to only be interested their own athletics and the BNC West; and people from both may keep a tab or two on things from across the river.
Whereas my limits of interest are endless.
When talking to someone from Sterling about something high school sports-related, I find myself bringing up examples from schools such as Newark, Boylan, Princeton and Marengo - much to their confusion.
I'm afraid that if I get twitter, I'm just going to be clogging up your news feed with boring thoughts and boring information and boring this and boring that.
Apparently, I already do this with Facebook. Just take a look at my Wall. Do my posts interest others? Rarely.
Below is a video version of Peter Griffin narrating his day, from an episode of Family Guy. If I ever caved in to Twitter, this is what I'd probably be like ...
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