“I love a hand that meets my own, that causes some sensation.”

- Samuel Osgood

Every time I think I'm on top of things something new shows up and I don't know when or how but for some reason another trend has slipped by without me noticing and suddenly I am out of the loop. Here's what happened:

Some friends came up to me and asked me what I thought at the time was a rather personal question, which was: Had I ever twittered.

Now, I come from a long line of people that prescribe to the theory of “if you smelt it; you dealt it.” There's no need to ask for a confirmation, so my answer was a quick “no.” In fact, the last time I twittered around my friends it was after a late night of eating burritos and there was no questioning its origin.

What can I say? For me, beans are a musical fruit. Though, in my house, instead of twittering, we always called it “tooting.”

So there were my friends, with odd looks on their faces, as I just stood there wondering why it is that they're suddenly so interested in my gastric activities as it were. But, after a brief explanation, it was now I that had the look of confusion. They didn't want to know if I was making a stink in the room, but rather on the Web.

For the ignorant, myself included, “twittering” is the latest in fads to come careening down the information superhighway.

Basically, it's a Web site that lets you broadcast your life to anyone who's interested by using your computer or your cell phone's keypad to type out a brief message of 140 characters or less regarding your daily thoughts and activities.

The idea originated from the observation that the first question most people ask of their friends is “what are you doing?” So this service gives you the forum to, essentially, give people a play by play of your day.

After looking at the Web site and reading quite a few of the posts I have come to the conclusion that the Internet has officially jumped the shark.

The whole need to feel linked with others started with e-mails which then evolved into instant messages. When that became too much of a bother, we started texting. And now, instead of ever having a conversation you can just look up your friends online and see what they are up to and comment back and forth as needed. My question is this: doesn't anyone just talk anymore? Or better yet, can't you ever miss someone? Have people forgot the adage “absence makes the heart grow fonder?” It's sort of scary to know that people are choosing virtual relationships over having actual friends and have forgotten that smiles can be more than a colon and a parenthesis.

I'm not saying that all the new technology is bad after all, I own a cell phone and a laptop, but if I really wanted to know what my friends were up to, I'd prefer to just ask them.

Bradley Molloy's column appears here, each Sunday, in The Citizen. He can be reached at lovonian@hotmail.com