It happened again last night; my defending Twitter to a sceptic. The funny thing is, this wasn’t someone my mother’s age, or someone who doesn’t possess a PC, or any other type of person that I wouldn’t even begin to discuss Twitter with. This is someone with their own website, their own blog, someone who even had an iphone before me. The very person who ‘virtually’ held my hand the night I signed up for Facebook as I sat and waited for the cyber bullies to attack.

I just don’t understand what exactly he doesn’t understand. If you understand…

Of course it’s not for everyone. But it’s not what everyone seems to think it is either. Other people I’ve spoken to are convinced that they’ll be bombarded by all manner of mundane tweets about people getting on buses, or having toast for breakfast. And yes they might, if people who tweet about getting on buses or having toast for breakfast are all they follow. The concept that you put some thought/effort into who you follow is one that I’m having ridiculous difficulty in getting across. I’m not going to suggest people to follow, that’s a very personal choice, but for me personally, I’m interested in politics, journalism, writing, comedy and sport. So let’s guess what kind of people I might be following…. It’s not rocket science, like the early auditions of X-factor, it’s up to you to eliminate the duds along the way.

The people I follow have to be funny (@davidschneider, @andrewismaxwell, @pjgallager, @jarlath, @dermotwhelan) , informative (@MargaretEWard, @conorpope, @breakfastnt, @ainekerr) , have an ascerbic wit (@gracedent, @cdasilva) but constant self-promotion bores me (@piersmorgan!!) as does an endless diatribe of txt spk (@rioferdy5). @AAroadwatch is useful for obvious reasons, as is @southdublincoco. For sport you couldn’t pass up @kenearlys and for good all round intelligent tweets @daraobrian is in a league of his own. The list of people you follow is built up over time, some of the best people I follow were happened on accidently (@missronnoco and@whyowhyvonne) and some have been longtime media idols of mine (@roisiningle and @fionalooney).

The twitterquitter last night did make a good point that instead of asking is one ‘on’ Twitter, the phrase should be ‘does one read Twitter’, which would be true but for one important point. One has to be ‘on’ Twitter, to be able to elect who to follow – there is a big world of Tweets out there and you don’t want to be sifting through them all to find something intelligible or relevant or even interesting.

So where do I get the time? Well, as the owner of an iphone, why wouldn’t I have the time? Waiting in a queue these days is less of an issue than battery life… When the youngest was going through her nightmare phase of nighttime waking, Twitter kept me sane in the wee hours when I was pinned to the bed with her snoring on my chest (a time that prompted some interesting Tweeting from @missronnoco about full moons!) Trouble is, with the upcoming election, I’m probably going to need a second phone…

But do I tweet? Well, yes I do, tentatively at first, now I’m a bit braver. Getting followers is frustratingly out of my hands, but I’ve twenty six now, and at least 30% of those have some English so it’s a good start. I still get a ridiculous buzz when something I tweet is deemed worthy of a ‘retweet’ or when I receive a response to a Tweet from someone ‘worthy’ – sad? Probably… but as a MotherWorkerWriter I don’t get out much do I?

Now, how do I abbreviate the above into 140 characters…