Talk To Me

I've been saving a link to a Washington Post article published last month that analyzed social networking and other communications choices against dating profiles.

Reporter Monica Hesse writes: "Today, you can be a phone person, an e-mail person, a text person, a Skype person, a Facebook wall person, a Twitter person, an instant-messaging person, or you can just stare creepily into your webcam like that manga girl on YouTube."

I saved this article because it illustrates, beyond the dance of dating, how individual the art of communication can be. Quoting Hesse again:

"Each form of communication has its own followers and rules, which means dating today is a law of inverse proportions: As ways to communicate increase, the chances you will date someone who speaks your technological language decrease."

In the month since this article ran, the buzz on Twitter has blown up almost beyond recognition. Some are arguing that the flood of media attention may have caused Twitter to "jump the shark."

(For the unaware: "jump the shark" refers to a "Happy Days" episode where the uber-cool Fonzi character literally jumped over a shark in water skis while still dressed in his iconic leather jacket. Too much to be believed, and the popular television series began its final decline.)

Today I saw another sign that might indicate super-saturation of the Twitter phenomenon. The blog Politico.com reports that the revered Associated Press Style Book, used by editors and writers everywhere for reference, added Twitter to its listings.

Twitter officially has become legit.

A few hours later, another blog reported a different sign that the Twitter phenomenon could be in transition.

As I have written before, I've had a tough time getting comfortable with Twitter. And at the same time, I recognize that Twitter has been a liberating communications tool for millions of users in cyberspace. To quote Hesse again:

"We all want partners who understand us. We want people who appreciate not only what we say but how we say it. Facebook and MySpace, after all, would seem interchangeable only to people who had never used either one."

MySpace was up; now it's down. Facebook is hot, but maybe too hot among baby boomer for millennials to stay connected. Twitter is the Next Big Thing, or not.

Communications change, whether electronically or face to face. We're all required to be open to what is the best mode of communication for the people we want to connect with, and then meet them at that space if we really want to stay in touch. Whether it's hot or not.