I get all a'twitter (If only McLuhan could have had an iPhone)

So I have to admit, as constraining as I find Twitter to be, I love its novelty, how it forces clarity (or highlights a lack thereof), and the kind of compulsion it can become.

With Twitter, you can stay hyper–connected to your friends and always know what they’re doing. Or, you can stop following them any time. You can even set quiet times on Twitter so you’re not interrupted.

Twitter puts you in control and becomes a modern antidote to information overload.

The only aspect Twitter can control though is your reception; you alone are responsible for your impulse control. Just peek at the reasons to use to Twitter:

Why [use the service]? Because even basic updates are meaningful to family members, friends, or colleagues—especially when they’re timely.

• Eating soup? Research shows that moms want to know.
• Running late to a meeting? Your co–workers might find that useful.
• Partying? Your friends may want to join you.

I eat soup all the time! Sometimes I eat really good soup! Soup my friends like too! Well, I'll never have to eat soup in secrecy again. I know I'm being flippant, but I completely enjoy the fact that Twitter takes itself in such great stride that it includes "Eating soup?" under basic, but meaningful updates. Twitter can control when my friends get these meaningful newsflashes, but who can control my thumbs when I find something to be meaningful?

In all seriousness, the reason I started on Twitter is that I have a few times this week been dying to post things that I saw as I saw them. I felt paralyzed by my fear I'd forget. I thought, I should type this out in a note to myself, or I should text myself, or "Gee, we'd use Twitter!" Not once did I trust that I'd remember these instances on my own (nor did I once actually record these instances, either), and I began to think about myself and the effects of the new electronic media.

Take for example, my phone. It covers e-mail, internet, texting, phone, notes/to-do list, music, audiobooks, games, radio, weather, GPS, and clock and calendar. In this way, the technology enhances my ability to get things done and it carries my personal media. The news, music, my calendar and more are all amplified through this medium. But at what loss? What media have been reduced? Books and planners. Music players. Navigation system. Sometimes, maybe even the personal computer, as I've been known to sit at my desk at work and read my email on my phone as I sit in front of my Dell.

I may not have lost a modality, in the traditional way in which a radio replaces the visual, but I've lost a sense of patience I think. My phone makes a sound, I need to see what it is. I use different sounds to signify different things, so I know before I even see my phone that I have a text message, e-mail, or call from a specific person with a specific ring tone. Have I been prepped by previous technologies and their immediacy (from the ringing phone to the friendly "You've Got Mail!") to seek out a singular device that can fulfill my technological and communicative needs? What has my phone returned to the forefront of my life? My connections with others, my need for instant gratification, the visual of a website when I'm sitting in a doctor's office waiting room, audio when I'm on a train. But my consciousness of what is being sent to me is increased simply by being notified, am I really more conscious? I don't remember that I've read an e-mail because I've read it so quickly and didn't have time to respond. I'm no more conscious of my friend's birthday when I know that my Facebook application will tell me when it is coming and I can let that small fact slip out of my mind after I write something on her wall. I'm much less conscious of the environment around me, physically if I'm going to trip over myself while texting between train transfers, and emotionally in public settings while I'm writing to a long lost friend or angry family member.

Well, this is where my mind went a few times when I sat on the train, walked by Union Square, read the newspaper this week and thought "I don't have time to a blog fair justice this week, I just want to write up something about . . . " Similarly, there are times when I really can't imagine engaging my mom when I get from work, but I would love for her to know I'm still getting my soup.

[Finally, Twitter. Verb? I'd hate to think so, but it pains me even more to know that my repeated use of the phrase "use Twitter's services" most likely read pretty awkwardly. I can't quite accept it just yet. I'm sorry.]