How much is too much Information?

I don’t get it, I really don’t. Maybe it’s a generation thing. Maybe it’s something like certain dance movements that you only do when you are in early 20’s because to do them when you are older would throw your spine so far out of alignment you’d have to walk with a cane for the rest of your life. I don’t understand why the need to share what we are doing every minute of the day with friends or even complete strangers. Now I’m not talking about people with small children who really do need to know where the kids are and that they are safe, or people who do that for security reasons. I’m referring to those of us who sign on to certain websites and log every minute detail of our lives no matter how dreary and obsequious those details may be.

About 2 or 3 months ago I signed up with Facebook because a friend asked me to. But apart from him and an organization that asked to become a friend, I have no one else listed as a friend. It is not because I want to remain reclusive or set apart from everyone else, but because I don’t really know anyone else who belongs to Facebook, so I mainly keep some junk on it that will be easy for me to find in the future and prevent me from cluttering up my computer. It’s another resource for me.

I should also mention that I belong to 4 or 5 groups that have pages on Facebook, one of which is my gym. Out of the 5000 members that belong to my gym there are about 144 of us who also signed up for this group and except for the trainers; I haven’t seen a single person that I know. But it is a source that I can use to learn things about different events going on, or schedules that I might not be aware of. Also, Facebook is an icon featured on my iPod so it’s all linked.

Recently I noticed that I had not filled out the profile part of the webpage for Facebook and that there was also a section where you could tell people what you were doing exactly at that moment. There was a field for about 30 or 60 characters or words where you could say what you were doing at that moment. You could tell people that you were heading over to the movies, or having a cup of coffee with Jill or soaking in the tub with Bob. These blurbs about your life would then be instantly sent out to your friends’ email bins, websites or sent out as a text message to their cell phones and I thought this must be how Twitter works.

But then I asked myself, why would I want to let people know about every minute of my hum drum life, it’s tedious enough just living it. And worse than that, why on earth would I want to know about someone else’s life minute by minute? So you felt a little ill after lunch, do I really need to know right away? That shit can wait, no pun intended.

Take for example I gave a homeless guy a dollar after he held the door for me at a convenience store this evening. Should I have let the world know right away? I don't think so. If it’s really that important to you we can talk and reflect about it at the end of the day over the telephone if I haven’t turned it off and if I know that’s what the conversation will be about it probably will be off.

I know that there are many people who have signed up for Twitter and I guess similar programs and I don’t mean to point fingers at anyone because it’s not about them, or even you, it’s about me. I like to be up on gadgets and trends and stuff, but this one… I don’t get. It's funny that I’ll show you a picture of my behind and maybe more in a heartbeat as long as the picture looks good, but Twitter somehow seems like it’s too much of an invasion of my privacy and that just doesn’t sit well with me.

Am I wrong?