Emergency! Twitter Down!

As a widely known facebook addict among my friends, I certainly hold the social-networking culture dear to my heart. I understand the profound, albeit somewhat creepy thrill one gets from subtly stalking friends and acquaintances via the internet. While I haven't yet jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, I can see the appeal of the real-time information exchange that threatens the relevance of the once popular acronym, TMI.

That being said, I found a recent CNN article on the topic of the great Twitter outage of 2009 to be more than a little disturbing. Why? Because it was littered with the word "panic."

I have been known to panic on many occasions. I am intimately acquainted with the cold sweat, the tightened, labored breathing, and the horrifying hopelessness that are part of the short list of its identifying characteristics. Panic is not always rationally triggered. I am the first to admit that there have been many occasions I've pivoted into a frantic tizzy for seemingly no good reason. Not being able to log into a website to inform those who have passing familiarity with my name that "Nicole is drinking chocolate milk in her pajamas" has never been one of them.

The gratuitious use of the word "panic" in the aforementioned article is troubling in that it indicates a serious skewing of priorities. Inability to access food should induce panic; inability to access Twitter should not. If our generation is so dependant upon social networking that its temporary outage is cause for alarm, we may have bigger problems than interrupted access.

Perhaps the answer is to occasionally (gasp) make non-technologically facilitated social contact. Your friends and family won't need to be informed of your decision to drink chocolate milk in your pajamas if they're there to do it with you! Social networking should enhance our social lives, not replace them. Having a realistic view of Twitter, Facebook, and blogging in the grand scheme of life priorities may relegate panic to more appropriate arenas.