What Are You Doing?

The national attention span has been officially decreased to 140 characters thanks to the latest trend sweeping the Internet.

Shakespeare once wrote that 'brevity is the soul of wit,' but what he meant to say was that brevity is the soul of twitter.

Twitter was started as a micro-blogging site in 2006, but has recently taken flight. Many of us have tried to ignore it, but like the elephant in the room, it has grown to big to reconcile.

It must be confronted. It must be stopped. Here are some reasons why:

1. Twitter's slogan "What Are You Doing?" should be a rhetorical question. No one cares about the answer.
   
2. It will destroy literature. No one wants to read the Next Great American Tweet.
3. We need less cause to spend all free time in front of a computer screen.
4. Between Twitter and YouTube, privacy has all but disappeared.
5. People should not go through there life declaring all of their actions, like early Batman. No one cares that you made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
6. This is one step closer to that world they showed us in the Matrix. I'm afraid of anyplace we have to rely on Keanu Reaves to save humanity.
7. The association with birds is accurate because Twitter is for the birds. People on twitter should be called 'bird brains.' They are flighty and eat lightly.
8. Nothing worth saying can be said in less than 141 characters.
9. The CEO of Twitter is named Evan Williams. That is also the name of a whiskey bottled in Louisville, Kentucky. That can't be a coincidence. I don't trust this character.
10. A character limit also encourages the use of acronyms. You know who else uses acronyms? The military.
11. You can't spell Twitter without 'twit.' That is what people are becoming, short of speech and temper.

The popularity of Twitter displays the increasing narcissism of our society. Even more so than other social networking programs, Twitter is all about the individual. Instead of the dialogue connected to most other technology, Twitter is an exclusive, one-sided conversation with one's own ego.