Is Twittering Sustainable?

Last week, Hugh MacLead of Gaping Void (his cartoon above) announced that he was leaving the micro-blogging platform Twitter because he found it was distracting him from what he really wanted to be doing: writing books and drawing cartoons.

Rex Hammock responded with a sensible post calling for moderation:

I like Twitter and have written on this blog about how I believe it can serve many positive purposes. But yes, it can be a time-waste. That’s why I try to keep my Twittering in the background and turned off while working. I’ve found the program Twirhl, a desktop Twitter (and other services) client is helping me filter out lots of Twitter noise and have a better framework and context for the use of Twitter.

This struck a chord with me, as I am finding my current Twitter use unsustainable and have more or less abandoned the tool over the last week.

I find Twitter most useful when I read most of the updates of the people I am following. That way, you truly get to know the people you are following and can participate in the conversation that is taking place on Twitter. If I don’t read most of the updates, I find Twitter disorienting – it is like picking up a book and trying to read it backwards.

I’m currently following around a hundred people, and I would guess that I would have to be on Twitter an hour a day cumulatively to truly keep track. I’m not willing to make that kind of time investment. Given that, I’m left with a few choices:

1. Abandon Twitter altogether like Hugh.
2. Trim my list of people I’m following to a more manageable level.
3. Abandon the conversation aspect of Twitter and use it as a glorified listserv, a la Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Seth Godin. Basically stop listening, or drop in and out of the conversation at best.

I’m not sure what I’ll end up doing. I suspect other people are facing the same dilemma, as with many Twitter users you see periodic fits of activity followed by long periods of silence. I would guess these people are like me – they stop seeing the value because they don’t have time to follow the conversation.

Note: I just read an anecdote that pretty well sums up the Twitter time dilemma. Blogger Ryan Kruder recently called out Seth Godin for using Twitter as a one way communication vehicle (Godin never participates in conversations on Twitter and nearly all his posts are automatically imported via Twitterfeed). Godin responds:

If I twit, and do it well, as Garret seems to say, then what shall I give up? I already don’t sleep or comb my hair…

That pretty well sums up how I feel about Twitter right now.