As the last Twitter holdout at Sterling Communications, I have finally been assimilated. I now understand how easily one can be sucked into the Twitter vortex, resurfacing after losing hours of productive time.
In an article by Patrick May, the San Jose Mercury News cited research from Compete.com that in May there were nearly 20 million unique visitors to the site, up from 2 million in May 2008. I wonder, will the huge burst in popularity of Twitter cause its original adherents to disdain the service and move on to the New New Thing? There are parallels to be drawn with the fad of Citizens Band two-way radio in the mid-to-late 1970’s.
As I child, I had a front-row seat to the CB phenomenon as my parents were among the first of the non-trucking community to cotton to it. My father was in charge of IT for the Oregon State Police Department, and oversaw the purchase of CB radios for patrol cars to use for monitoring traffic. He became enamored of it and bought a base station for our house, to sit alongside his police scanner, as well as mobile units for our cars. He insisted family members adopt “handles” and learn the 10-codes and slang (my first foreign language).
After a few months, we attended the equivalent of tweet-ups to get to know the people behind the handles. Alley Cat, High Pockets, White Eagle, Livewire, Longfellow, and Bambi and Thumper (a married couple) became close family friends, although to this day, I have no idea of the real names of some of these people. We all went camping together and could keep in touch along the road via our radios. We let people know if we were running errands and offered to pick up things for them, if in the neighborhood. Sound familiar?
Eventually, with the spreading popularity of the CB culture due to country songs such as “Convoy ” and movies such as “Smokey & The Bandit,” the radio bands that we used became cluttered. The old-timers resented the new converts, who didn’t understand CB etiquette and were too quick to jump into “private” conversations. The “cool” folks started migrating to another channel but the interlopers followed. The novelty started to wear thin, and we didn’t like the interruptions during our favorite TV shows. We started to keep the radio off, only dipping in now and then, at certain times of day or when expecting a message. After my father’s death, my mother gave away our base station, which had sat idle for months.
Although I use my real name with Twitter, I do have a strong sense of déjà vu. Tech changes; people’s behavior remains the same … just a little bit of history repeating, to quote Miss Shirley Bassey. Will Twitter become a touchstone of the 2000’s, the way CB is of the 70’s? Don’t scoff; only time will tell. I’ll 10-4 that and go 10-7.
(Full disclosure: My CB handle was Firefly, due to my hair.)
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