Life-2-Txt: the "Twitter" Effect

Thank you Rebecca for reminding me of the Dr. Michael Wesch video "A Vision of Students Today."

Briefly running into @hillisj last week, it made me realize how much text connectivity goes on day-to-day. Twittering or updating Facebook from a mobile phone or computer is just as much a part of our routine as getting up and turning on the coffee maker.

While preparing for a presentation for CCE 542 with a colleague and fellow blogger, Rebecca, she mentioned something that resonated...

"I have an hour part of my morning when I drink coffee...I go online, I hit my blog platforms, I check my email and I check on Blackboard on the discussion boards...it's like when people used to wake up and drink coffee and read the newspaper...I just read seven of them..."

This is not just because we are students, but because generationally and socially we have become so dependent (or perhaps addicted) of our access to information on-the-go.

The Twitter Effect
More and more, text communication is breaching the point of a terminal way of conversation. The fact is that this grad student can catch a bus from Birnam Wood and walk from the bus stop by the Rec Center to the Underground Coffee house and have the following conversations:

The Twitter effect- The day started with a tweet before catching a bus to campus...

• Twittered @hillisj about maybe meeting up on some discourse on Windows 7 vs OSX as we discussed via Twitter. While walking from South Campus to Red Square, have a text conversation with Jes (one of my girlfriend's roommates)-who is currently passing through Oregon on her way back from a sailing regatta. This walk is during one of the most busy times and it is packed (to optimize potential to walk into someone I know). I get through the square, and walk down to vendor's row and chatted (face-to-face) with my RA from last year. I saunter into the Underground and kick open my MacBook and connect to the campus WiFi to blog about my morning and update my Facebook. All the meanwhile, while writing and Facebooking, I IM with a colleague in California. All the while, received several other tweets that lead me to think that I won't be meeting up with my friend in the underground today.

The entire description above is maybe in a 30 minute section of time and done between a V3 Razr cell phone and a MacBook on WiFi connection. I connected with over 7 people via text where I talked, face-to-face, with only one person.

Multi tasking on my walk and at my destination leads to basically 700% more text communication than life conversation. I had more multiple, un-linear text interactions and became abreast of several socially important things; such as Diggnation coming to Seattle (thanks @rahimk)