Twitter is social messaging in real-time. Day or night you can tell the world what you're doing or thinking. You're listening to music. You're upset that the internet is so slow. Your hobbies are thus and so. There was an article in the paper about our lawmakers Twittering to the world about the bills they're voting on, etc. and their Blackberries now have to be shut off during sessions.
Facebook and Twitter are very similar. You can even link the two together. I think Facebook's taking taken the place of e mails with friends and family from what I've seen. IMHO, Twitter is simple, Facebook is more complicated. They're both just ways to see what you and everybody else are up to.
Twittering is just one more step to having the borg mind. Every uninteresting banal common activity you are engaged in can now be shared with the world as you do it. For example : in the past , you might have gone to the bathroom and had the movement of a lifetime with a three foot log in the toilet bowl . You might have liked to share this precious moment with others, but common sense stepped in and you stopped yourself from going back to your restaurant table in order to invite other members of your party back to the scene of the crime so that they can view what you gave birth to.
Now with twittering, you can provide a word by word description of the blessed event and the associated emotions and sensations as it occurs. You can even include a picture of the log and every one can view it via the internet ( at least on facebook, I don't know about twitter)
Sound like I told you more than you should know. Indeed, that's why I don't like facebook or twitter. I would prefer a return to the days of ala little house on the prarie . townperson 1 -"letter for Charles Ingalls"
townperson 2 -"hey Charles got a letter, Charles, open
it up and read it.
Charles (opening and unfolding letter) - "Dear Charles , your brother has died, it was a lovely funeral, condolences."
and he got the letter 3 weeks after the funeral.