• by frank , April 13, 2009

Explaining Twitter’s effect on my life is kind of like trying to explain Twitter itself; it’s fairly tough. It certainly has had a positive impact, giving me the ability to stay informed in my friends’ (and a few celebrities’) lives, and to send out information relevant to my followers. I joined Twitter in mid-November and have since tweeted almost 600 times and now have more than 100 followers. After consulting a writing expert (a.k.a. my journalist friend), I decided to show Twitter’s influence on my life by illustrating a day in the life of my Twitter.

9:36am: Wake up. As usual, I’m ten minutes late. But before my contact lenses are in or my pants are on, I’m turning on my phone and grabbing my iPod Touch to check my e-mail and the previous four or five hours worth of tweets. Most are complaints about going to bed later than desired or being awake earlier than necessary.

11:03am: My political science class starts. I quickly ignore the lecture (having taken similar classes the previous two semesters) and log onto Twitter on my laptop. I read about Kevin Smith’s wake-and-bake and subsequent munchies.

11:25am: Receive text canceling lunch plans so I tweet a request for someone to accompany me to the Chinese buffet near campus.

11:29am: Check Twitter for reply to my request. Nothing.

11:33am: Check Twitter for reply to my request. Nothing.

11:39am: Check Twitter for reply to my request. Nothing.

11:46am: Check Twitter for reply to my request. Nothing.

12:00pm: Class is over and I meet up with a friend of mine for an afternoon cigarette. We discuss Kevin Smith’s tweet about his wake-and-bake and subsequent munchies.

12:05pm: Check Twitter for reply to my request. Someone replied saying they wanted to join me but couldn’t because of a meeting. I send guilt tweet about grabbing fast food because no one wanted to hang out with me. Includes obligatory =(

12:10pm: Tweet about fifth graders with Red Bull being on the loose in the food court I pass through on the way to my car.

2:30pm: Wake up from fast food-induced afternoon nap and check Twitter before rolling out of bed. See a breaking news tweet from CNN and check Google Reader on my iPod Touch to learn more about the story.

2:40pm: Finish reading the news and check the other tweets I missed. Retweet a friend’s tweet about an event her organization is holding.

2:41pm: Quickly realize that I have at least five common followers with my friend and send a tweet apologizing for everyone having to receive a duplicate tweet about an event they were all already planning to attend anyway.

3:04pm: Tweet a TinyURL about a story I finished reading on Google Reader.

4:12pm: Tweet about playing with bubbles and eating watermelon.

6:15pm: It occurs to me that I haven’t checked Twitter in more than two hours. Nothing interesting has been posted in that time. I tweet about the upcoming four hours of LSAT prep class I must endure.

8:30pm: Check Twitter on my 15 minute break from the LSAT prep class. Reply to a tweet asking where I plan to attend law school. Hope to make someone laugh by tweeting: “If common law marriage existed between humans and items, I'd be married to my phone, Red Bull and the library.”

10:42pm: Check Twitter and tweet about my LSAT prep class finally being over and running past the scheduled time. Follow with a tweet about how I will spending the rest of the evening in the library and that company and caffeine would be greatly appreciated.

11:36pm: Procrastinate by checking friends’ followers and following mutual friends.

12:15am: Further procrastination by searching for celebrity Twitters to follow.

3:02am: Tweet about pulling an all-nighter (mainly because I procrastinated by playing on Twitter).

3:15am: Arrive home to witness a fight in the street outside a bar and decide to tweet about it.

3:32am: Sit down to do homework and instead decide to do it the following afternoon.

3:35am: Tweet an obligatory “Goodnight Twitterverse” and shut my iPod Touch off before rolling over and going to bed.