Things and ideas

On Sunday morning I read an article by Amy Harmon in which she describes Twitter envy: how users, tweeting from glamorous parties and elite conferences, are grating the eyeballs of their followers, to whom their posts read more like more like, “I’m here and you’re not” than “I wish you were here.” #sxsw is reported to have been tweeted more than 625,000 times last week, according to the TweetReach blog, http://bit.ly/gEUL0E. Yet fewer than 20,000 attended the 10-day event.

Riding up Larch Mountain Road on my bike later that day, I reminded myself to take a picture from the top. Why? So I could post it on my Facebook profile, of course.

Really?

Among their many attributes, social networks have enabled us to toot our horns in new ways. But is it sharing or crowing? We thrust our weekend exploits and dream vacations upon our “friends,” however many there may be, so they can appreciate our achievements and milestones—or tune us out.

It’s not as if the urge to share our successes or boast our triumphs is a new human instinct. Remember “wish you were here” postcards? Trophy cases? Framed diplomas? When I was a child my parents traveled extensively and tracked all of the places they’d been with red pins on a large map of the world. They even had a coffee table made with swizzle sticks collected from hotel bars around the world. But these mementos were visible only to close friends and family. By invitation only, you could say, since they were in the house, not on the Net.

Sharing versus showing off… the line is thin indeed, but it’s all about intent. Make it interesting, funny or informative and readers will cheerfully go there with you.

I’ll post that photo from Larch Mountain, if only to make you aware of the snow on the road beyond milepost 9.