Neither Do I

Tweet, that is. Although unlike Adam Gopnik, I don’t have a Twitter account and have no plans to open one.

My 14-year-old daughter not only sends tweets. She speaks tweets. If I say, for instance, that I never Google myself, she replies: “Hashtag: Obvyliesdadtells.”

Now, that’s one good reason right there. I detest leet speek so Twitter twatting is just going to go onto the list of inane wibble that I will eschew.

But there is another reason; the sheer tidal wave of the hard-of-thinking who bombard this medium with their ill-conceived 140 character wisdom. There is no nuance, no attempt to enlarge on a thought or argument. And there is another one – the Twitter mob. The court of public opinion has transformed itself from a rampaging mob in the streets to the Twitterati. Trial and condemnation by Twitter is a phenomenon that appalls me. Sure, the people who conceived the idea probably did not have that in mind when they created it and the mob pre-existed this silly medium, but that is the outcome; the twitter mob that passes judgement and condemns; just as it did with the plegate affair and that was a prime example of a lynching that was misplaced. Are the Twitterati now coming out of their holes and apologising to the wronged man? Are they buggery – they have moved onto the next target of their spiteful little campaign of hate. I want nothing to do with it in any shape or form (even though I don’t like Tory politicians – I will at least condemn them for what they have done).

So, like Gopnik, I don’t Tweet and have no plans to start. It has nothing to do with technophobia, but it has everything to do with a distaste for the mob.