Twitter poses the question, "What are you doing?" Sometimes, people answer pretty dutifully. So they're eating bacon for lunch, catching up on email run amok or cleaning the tub. Because they can send updates not only from their computers but from their mobile phones, too, people also report that they're ordering a triple double at In-N-Out Burger, sitting in traffic on Route 1 or boarding a plane for Omaha.
Although status updates like that may sound mundane, people on Twitter have found that becoming aware of what your friends, family and colleagues are doing (without having to respond) leads to a lightweight but meaningful connection, sometimes called "ambient awareness" or "ambient intimacy," a term coined by Leisa Reichelt (@leisa).
Tim on ambient intimacy: I see my brother James every couple of months, talk to him about as often, always wish for more. Through Twitter, I follow him every day. Of course, we have shared context that others may miss. Naturally, he tears up at a space launch: when we were kids we used to pray each night for a UFO to come down in our backyard. And it's great to know that he's got an exterminator in to deal with the biting spiders that kept me from staying over last time I visited. I know, as few do, that his background is a photo from my father's grave in Ireland.
Sarah on ambient intimacy: My brother and his wife had a baby recently, and part of the joy for me is seeing my parents become utterly smitten grandparents. Little messages about their experiences make me feel a lot closer than the 3,000 miles that separate us. (The DDOJ is the Daily Dose of Jack—photos of my nephew that family sends every day.)
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