Spring Break
Twitter: New social network acts as the Ultimate Stalker Tool
Chloe Thompson
Issue date: 2/27/09 Section: Editorial/Opinion
02/27/09 - You wake up, hit snooze a few times, turn on your computer and check your e-mail. Maybe you sign on to Facebook but hey, nothing interesting is happening at 7:30 a.m.
Classes come and go, your cell phone is constantly beeping with new text messages, voicemails and maybe e-mails, but if you've got a BlackBerry, those can easily be checked.
You come home; check Facebook, e-mails, maybe hop on a few other social sites like MySpace or the more professional LinkedIn.
But apparently, despite the calls, texts and Facebook status updates you've witnessed, it still is necessary to track your best friend's (or the cute neighbor's) every move.
Enter Twitter, the ultimate stalker tool.
Just a few years ago - Twitter's Web site says 2006 - a group of men decided that the world needed yet another social network. Now, millions of people are using Twitter.
Twitter, for those of you who haven't heard about it, sends "Tweets" (yes, that's right. Tweets.) to friends who have signed up to "follow you" (exact wording) on this network. You can tell them anything: "I am eating a bowl of cereal," for example. "I just witnessed a naked man running down the street," or maybe it's a question, "Who is watching Gossip Girl tonight?"
Riveting stuff, indeed. How many people scoffed at the idea of Facebook statuses and Minifeeds, joining groups against them and boycotting Facebook until it went away ... that lasted long. Eventually, everyone gave in and updates their status with equally mundane and random things. I myself updated my friends on being locked out of my house earlier this morning via Facebook status ... friends here, back home, random people from the 2nd grade, my sister and a former professor, to name a few.
Necessary? No. Humorous? Slightly. Did this status update alert every one of my 1,043 friends on Facebook on their cell phone or send an irritating e-mail saying "Chloe Thompson has just updated her Facebook status!" No.
Classes come and go, your cell phone is constantly beeping with new text messages, voicemails and maybe e-mails, but if you've got a BlackBerry, those can easily be checked.
You come home; check Facebook, e-mails, maybe hop on a few other social sites like MySpace or the more professional LinkedIn.
But apparently, despite the calls, texts and Facebook status updates you've witnessed, it still is necessary to track your best friend's (or the cute neighbor's) every move.
Enter Twitter, the ultimate stalker tool.
Just a few years ago - Twitter's Web site says 2006 - a group of men decided that the world needed yet another social network. Now, millions of people are using Twitter.
Twitter, for those of you who haven't heard about it, sends "Tweets" (yes, that's right. Tweets.) to friends who have signed up to "follow you" (exact wording) on this network. You can tell them anything: "I am eating a bowl of cereal," for example. "I just witnessed a naked man running down the street," or maybe it's a question, "Who is watching Gossip Girl tonight?"
Riveting stuff, indeed. How many people scoffed at the idea of Facebook statuses and Minifeeds, joining groups against them and boycotting Facebook until it went away ... that lasted long. Eventually, everyone gave in and updates their status with equally mundane and random things. I myself updated my friends on being locked out of my house earlier this morning via Facebook status ... friends here, back home, random people from the 2nd grade, my sister and a former professor, to name a few.
Necessary? No. Humorous? Slightly. Did this status update alert every one of my 1,043 friends on Facebook on their cell phone or send an irritating e-mail saying "Chloe Thompson has just updated her Facebook status!" No.
