n+1 Magazine has a wonderfully-written editorial on the ups and downs of using Twitter, appropriately titled Please RT:

Look at your Twitter feed at the wrong moment, however, or send a dumb tweet yourself, and a bad infinity opens up onto the narcissistical sublime. What tweet is that, flashing, subliminally, behind the others? In exactly 140 characters: “I need to be noticed so badly that I can’t pay attention to you except inasmuch as it calls attention to me. I know for you it’s the same.” In this way, a huge crowd of people”Š”””Š40 percent more users since last year”Š”””Šdevalue one another through mutual self-importance.

They’re referring to other people, of course. You and I are very different! It’s this part that scares me the most though, because the evidence proving their point is starting to pile up all around us:

Soon, if not yet already, it will seem pretentious, elitist, and old-fashioned to write anything, anywhere, with patience and care.