Twitter, Facebook, and "The Hive Mind"

I deliberated for a while, but I finally decided to sign up with Twitter. I am a dedicated facebooker. I have facebook to thank for hooking back up with some of my old college friends and getting to see them again, which has been so much fun. That is what I think the inherent value in facebook is. My husband doesn't like it. He calls it "myface" and thinks it is an opportunity for people to be narcissistic. "Why do I need to know what so-and-so had for lunch?" he'll ask, or "I really didn't need to know that Chrissy is covered in baby vomit and kitty litter." He is even more vehemently opposed to Twitter. I tried to explain to him about "the hive mind." He didn't buy it. He doesn't want to hear what the hive mind has to think.

At first I was reluctant to sign up with Twitter, thinking, I can barely keep up with facebook, how will I keep up with Twitter? But I decided to go for it, just to see what I could learn. I am very intrigued with the concept of the hive mind. I'll put in my little entries, and see what happens. I'm following Amy (Kearns), and my baby-vomit-and-kitty-litter-covered friend Chrissy, so that's a good start. I do want to know what you guys had for lunch - and where! And I am curious to see other people's friends' replies to their tweets.

Back to facebook for a moment. People can be very narcissistic and showy on that site. Sometimes Rob (the husb) and I get a good laugh at the pretension, especially in repsonse to thsose self-defining lists that go around, like "How many of these books have you read?" and the infamous 25 things. "We can't believe they said that!" we say. But before facebook, I would think about people from high school or college, or my life in Virginia, and wonder what they were up to. It made me sad that I still had such fond memories of these folks, but had no idea what they were up to. A regular email correspondence would be just too weird because of the length of time that has passed, but facebook is just perfect for checking in and saying hi. You can have as much of a connection or as little as you want on facebook... but you still get to have a connection, and knowing that Anita from high school now rides motor cycles and that guy Brad I dated is writing a novel, well, that's worth knowing to me. Facebook lets you see how much people change, and how much people don't, and reflects the same back to you. It helps you realize that after all these years, you are still part of the hive.