29 Going on 79

In a staff meeting today we were discussing Twitter. Their recent marketing campaign seems to be working since every news outlet has splashed their recent morning and evening programs with stories about Twitter. The question during our meeting was whether or not we should “Twitter” on behalf of our non-profit Foundation. None of us are experienced with Twitter and there were several furrowed brows wondering what exactly it means to “Twitter.” One coworker exclaimed “why would anyone use Twitter?” and I shared the brief explanation I found online: “Because even basic updates are meaningful to family members, friends, or colleagues—especially when they’re timely. And they help to fill in the blanks that may be left when catching up by phone.” Even I don’t fully get this explanation but I understand the general appeal. Her response was an exasperated “but who cares???” My exasperated response was “yes, we don’t care, but millions of others do.”

I get frustrated with discussions like this because they simply turn a moot point over and over and over. Let’s follow the timeline of modern achievements and the everyman’s reaction:

1775 – Franklin establishes the United States Postal Service. Reaction: “Why in the world would I write a letter to someone on the other side of town when I can simply see them in church on Sunday?”

1828 – Harrison Dyar invents the first telegraph in the US. Reaction: “Who needs dots and dashes when I can write a letter?”

1876 – Though occasionally argued by historians and competing inventors, Bell invents the telephone. Reaction: “Calling is creepy, I’ll just send a telegram.”

1965 – MIT starts using MAILBOX to send electronic messages via computer, and by the 1990s it catches on in the mainstream. Reaction: “E-mailing is hard and confusing, I’ll just call.”

2003 & 2004 – In 2003 Brad Greenspan and some pals at eUniverse started the MySpace as a competitor for the newly launched Friendster website. In 2004 Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook with several friends on campus. Reaction: “MyFace and SpaceBook are a waste of time, why wouldn’t you just e-mail people?”

2004 & 2006 – Twitter is developed at Cornell to transfer files and by 2006 is publicly marketed as a text transfer program with the limit set at 140 characters. It is used in the same manner as the status updates made popular by MySpace and Facebook. Reaction: “Who cares? Who has time to check multiple websites for an update on hundreds of friends?”

2009 – My 62 year old mother is on Facebook and I’m pretty sure that my toddler nephew will soon have an account.

My coworker’s exasperated response is nothing new. I’m sure she’ll sign up for Facebook the minute she realizes that her Granddaughter would rather “Twitter” than write Grandma a letter or e-mail. On that note, the organization I work for has eventually embraced all of this technology – but not without some pushback. We could argue that it’s entirely unnecessary to send letters, e-mail blasts, offer Twitter updates and keep our website current since we have a quarterly magazine that mails to every single living member (who gives us an address update J) But that’s the lazy way out. And who reads magazines anyway? I was recently called an elitist for reading a magazine that had a higher ratio of text to pictures than the average celebrity magazine. Imagine, an article with no pictures…*GASP*

I find that I’m often conflicted in my professional job and education and my personal interests. I love electronic social networking, e-mail, texting and really anything that allows for faceless and voiceless communication. But I also wish that instead of an e-mail folder filled with newsy correspondence from my Mom, I had a packet of letters tied with a ribbon in my letter box. Sometimes I miss her handwriting and the homey feeling that I remember from the typed letters on carbon paper that my parents received from my Grandparents while I was growing up. As an archivist I crave hard copies. Pouring through a messy box of photographs is far more nostalgic than scrolling through a messy digital file of photographs. But nostalgia only gets you so far. Nostalgia also makes us think that WWII would have been a better time to live than now. Victory Gardens are fun, but rationing and worldwide terror is not.

In 2009 I have decided to take up calligraphy and am teaching myself to illuminate things. I’m not sure what I’m going to illuminate with my little paint set, but whatever it is, I’m sure it will be lovely and give me a feeling of old-world values; values that seem to be born of nostalgia, personal connection and untimely updates. Nevermind the awful plagues and poverty that was rampant during the heyday of illuminated manuscripts. The only trouble is that it’s hard to find time for such activities when I have so many updates to check on my social networking accounts.