Like Evan Williams said in David Pogue's article in the New York Times Twitter? It's What You Make It "Twitter, in other words, is precisely what you want it to be. It can be a business tool, a teenage time-killer, a research assistant, a news source - whatever. There are no rule, or at least none that apply equally well to everyone." With 140 characters to use one can tell the world s/he had eggs and bacon for breakfast or tell the world they opened a business and the first 100 customers eat for free. This technology can be used for more than just chats or updates as well. You can use it for research or send a link and direct another person to some files, videos, pictures etc.
There are so many benefits of having Twitter, in the New York Times article Putting Twitter's World to Use, Claire mentioned "companies like Starbucks, Whole Foods and Dell can see what their customers are thinking as they use a product, and companies can adapt their marketing accordingly." AT&T used Twitter for similar reasons, when some vandals cut one of their fiber-optic cables they used Twitter to update their customers on what happened and what's being done. Another advantage to society mentioned by Claire is Twitter allows people to constantly update their status thus, giving a basic news feed to anyone who want to read it. Lastly I want to mention that even machines can send out "tweets" which can be good and bad.
The good thing is that the technology can be adapted to send out messages to you for thing like the security of your home. On the other hand, when you follow a lot of people you could get bombarded with messages. The type of personality you have can make this even worse. I'm talking about those people who can't go a few minutes without checking for updates or one of those who has to read every post someone puts up. (I know way too many people like this.) This will end up consuming your life making it harder for you yo take care of your daily tasks like studying or going out and enjoying the day. At the very least this will reduce the time you have to enjoy yourself.
I know what you mean by the people that have to be Online every single time for updates. At times, it is kind of annoying because it's like a guilty pleasure because you can't get enough of it.(Confession: Sometimes, I'm one of those people :])
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