SevenCubed - 3:26 am on Oct 17, 2012 (gmt 0)

To me Twitter is kind of like a CB radio.

That's why I don't use it. When I was a teen my social media was in fact a CB radio. I also know a fellow who had a holed up section in the basement where he secluded himself from all of his siblings and set up his environment for "exploring the world" via radio waves.

The problem was the "skip" interference was so intense during high sunspot activity that he couldn't hear his buddy only a few miles away through the noise (twitter chirping). Bare with me this is on topic!

He longed to have interesting conversations but the Department of Communications rules said he wasn't allowed to talk to those people far away. He still to this day has a few shoe boxes full of QSL cards confirming communications with people in 49 of the 50 states as well as 9 of the 10 provinces here. But he quickly realized the conversations were very shallow -- just exchange of weather reports and such. Twitter-like contacts.

Undaunted, he was somehow introduced to a bunch of old local hams (amateur radio operators). When he talked with them (in person) their world knowledge intrigued him. So he began his studies to get his ham license. He had no problem with the theory but the Morse code kicked his butt *sigh*. He couldn't even master the novice class of 7 words per minute.

I would compare ham radio operators to Webmaster World members where I know there's likely to be something interesting going on -- something worth learning. Therefore I have no need for Twitter at the moment. Don't know about the future though. But it stifles my long winded style :)

By the way that fellow eventually figured out how to reverse the crystals in his 11 metre CB to fall into the 10 metre ham band and enjoyed countless hours of meaningful conversations with old hams chock full of wisdom -- they were masters of the world web of communications frequencies.

I recognize that same value in places like this social media outlet of Webmaster World. Twitter, not so much.