So, I ran across this article  (130 million Tweets everyday are not worth reading, researchers find – Telegraph) today and it got me thinking about Twitter…

You and I both have been annoyed by Twitter at some point.  Those who don’t use Twitter are annoyed by the whole concept of Twitter.  Those who do use Twitter get annoyed by poor twit-equette (yep, I just made up that word).  You know, the Tweet with 7 hashtags, the “I got a +K from…” update every 5 minutes, or any of the other annoying behaviors the article articulates.

(If you don’t understand +K, click the link…but I’m warning, you’re about to have your self worth judged by numbers…and you’re going to like it.)

So here’s my question:  Why do we still do it?  Why do we need to constantly be speaking out into the void and desperately hoping for a retweet or a mention? Are we self-absorbed? Insecure? Vain? Is there some sort of deeper fear that’s having an impact on our Twitter behavior?  Or are most of us just generally annoying people who don’t do much that is all that interesting?

I don’t have an answer for these questions…after all, that’s why I have a blog, so I can ask these questions without having to answer them.  Only…the fact that I even think my thoughts are worth blogging (and then Facebook posting, and Tweeting and re-Tweeting about) comes from the same place.

It’s a place that greets me in the shower each morning and where I think about what I might want to blog about today.  Or the place I find myself when I’m at a stoplight trying to craft the “perfect Tweet.”

I think it’s the place inside me that has an intense desire to have a positive impact on the world – even if it’s a small impact.  If I can throw a hashtag on a Tweet that makes someone laugh – even if that someone is just my best friend – then I’ve made the world just a little bit better.  If one of my random rambling thoughts – turned random rambling blog posts – helps someone else see themselves, their relationships, their job, their life, their God in a little different light…then I’ve made the world just a little bit better.

So, I guess I did answer my own question…the reason I Tweet and blog is because I want to make this world just one smile, one prayer, one self-reflection better than it would have been without me in it.

The challenge now is to remind myself of that every time I stare at that 140 character long blank line:

How will this Tweet (status update, blog post, etc) help make the world a little bit better?

130 million Tweets might be boring to most of us, but if those 130 million Tweets made the world a little bit better place for even one person…well, then our world is 130 million times better.  And I’m more than okay with that.

(P.S. Follow The Catholic Realiston Twitter and Facebook…Do it….Now…)