Solomon Jones: Life simplified in 140 characters is pretty scary

I LIKE TWITTER. It's an effective networking tool. And that was all I thought it was until Thursday, when Twitter crashed and all hell broke loose.

Though I didn't see anyone jumping out of windows or cowering in corners, raging against the dying of the light, I did notice a kind of mass withdrawal that seemed to grip the online community during the hours that Twitter was down.

People were on Facebook saying stuff like "TWITTER IS DOWN! I CAN'T LOOK AT MY COMPUTER! IT BURNS!"

The response was even more pathetic on MySpace: "TWITTER IS DOWN. IS ANYBODY THERE? ANYBODY???"

I read those things (and yes, they were in all caps) and realized the horrible truth. While Twitter is merely a social-networking tool for me, it's an addiction for others. That's scary. Because boiling all our social interactions down to 140 characters means we're no longer talking with each other. We're talking at each other.

Of course, there's an advantage to tweeting rather than talking in person. It allows you to eliminate all the messy interactions that are part of the human experience.

What kind of interactions, you ask? The kind that start from the time we learn how to talk. For instance, my daughter Eve, who is entering second grade, told LaVeta that one of the girls who'll be in her class this year is concerned that a third girl in the class might not want to be friends.

With Twitter, this problem could easily be resolved. Girl B could choose to follow Girl A, and Girl A could refuse to follow back. Girl B might be hurt and confused by this, but there would be no ambiguity about the nature of their relationship. B wants to be A's friend. A doesn't want to be B's friend. No muss, no fuss, get over it.

Twitter makes it easier to weed out phonies, too. If your friends are fakes who change faces like they change clothes, stop dealing with them in the real world and do it all on Twitter. That way, when they trash you and deny it, you can find it right there on Twitter - in 140 characters and a link to an unflattering photo.

Don't want to be bothered by folks trying to sell stuff? With Twitter, you no longer have to be worried about a phone actually ringing with a recorded sales pitch. It's all right there in a short, abbreviated message.

Same thing with messages from people who promise to get you a half-million followers in a day, help you lose 50 pounds in a week, or earn $1,000 a day from home (without even bathing!) They're probably trying to sell you the online equivalent of the Brooklyn Bridge.

In real life, you have to actually engage such people. On Twitter, you can choose not to follow them. Better yet, you can simply block them. The ease of the interaction makes life that much easier. That might explain why the world almost stopped when Twitter went on the fritz. People actually had to start talking to each other again.

With Twitter, if you post something and change your mind, you can delete it, and the only consequence will be a warning message that says "There is no undo." In real life, once you say something, you can't take it back.

That's why I like the real world. Rejection rocks! Pain is my friend! Arguments are fun! OK, those are lies. I kinda like it the easy way, too. So do me a favor. If you wanna be friends without the drama, follow me at http://twitter.com/solomonjones1. If I don't follow back, at least you know where you stand.

Solomon Jones, whose column appears every Saturday, can be reached at sj@solomonjones.com.