Is Twitter worth your time?

I’m still unsold on the recent Twitter phenomenon. The ability to post quick notes to ‘followers’ defies logic and brings to mind the CB radio craze of the 70’s. I follow a few people on Twitter such as Lance Armstrong, Al Gore and John Mayer. Here’s a sampling of Lance Armstrong’s tweets over the last few days:

– Good morning. Crisp and cool here in Aspen.- 5:47 AM Apr 6th from TwitterBerry
– Heading up to the mountains for awhile. – 8:43 AM Apr 5th from TwitterBerry
– Good morning!! – 5:33 AM Apr 4th from web
– I’m sick and tired of reading and hearing about ruthless and senseless shooting sprees. It’s got to stop. – 2:25 PM Apr 4th from TwitterBerry

Uh, oh. Lance is sick of the shootings. Hey everybody! Stop shooting each other because Lance doesn’t like it. (That one reminds me of Hank Kingsley’s fan newsletter ‘thoughts’ he would dictate to his assistant Darlene on the old Larry Sanders Show)

To which my response is “Who cares what you think or what you’re doing?”. I thought the items shared on Twitter would be insightful and relevant which is obviously not the case. Are our lives so empty and insignificant that we rely on others to fill the void? Is this another form of voyeurism? Why do we really care what a professional cyclist thinks about recent tragic shootings in the U.S.? Well I for one don’t. I have yet to read anything worthy of my time on Twitter (John Mayer has contributed various ‘tweets’ about his relationship with Jennifer Anniston. Now there’s something I REALLY don’t care about!) nor have I contributed anything simply because I think my day is of little interest to others that ‘follow’ me. Perhaps therein lies the secret to Twitter’s success. There’s lots of people that believe others do. Until someone can prove otherwise I’m off Twitter until there’s something worth reading.