I have fallen for Twitter in a big way.  I use Tweetdeck and Tweetdeck for iPhone.  These two programs make Twitter simpler and easier than the already simple and easy web version.  I think Twitter has a strong appeal for people with ADD.  It is constant stimulus with short thoughts.  I can think a thought, share it, and have other people comment on it almost immediately.  This is what makes it great, it is also what makes it dangerous.

The internet has not helped my ADD.  It is easy to believe that my brain’s wiring is faulty, and I have no doubt that to a certain extent it is.  Yet, from what I’ve learned in abnormal psychology, our brains are rather malleable.  I used to do something called hyperfocusing when I read.  I would be drawn so deeply into a book that people had to shake me to get my attention.  I don’t do that anymore.  The problem is I’ve trained my body to think in five paragraphs or less (blogging), and I could potentially be training it to think in 140 characters or less.  While this can be a lot of information, it cannot have much depth.  You can’t structure an argument on twitter, merely state its outcome.

Twitter won’t kill blogging, and blogging won’t kill books.  We are not going to leave behind hundreds of years of the reading masses, and thousands of years of literate culture.  That said, we are in a culture that reads less and less of more and more.  If this is true than we need to increase literacy.  We cannot forget how to read and follow a detailed, structured argument, otherwise we will quickly become victim to short, pithy statements that “feel” right.