To Tweet, or not to Tweet: that is the question (I never thought I'd be asking)

I don't have a Twitter account. The appeal of sending regular 'tweets' into the ether has never quite reached my door. (And if it ever did, I'd probably just plug my fingers in my ears and start la-la-la-ing as loudly as possible until it went away again.) However, something strange happened to me earlier this afternoon.

There I was, happily minding my own business reading some news on the Internet, when my entire body practically convulsed with a sudden urge to open a Twitter account. I can't quite explain why, but I genuinely felt like I wanted to join the micro-blogging...erm...dare I say, 'revolution'.

I've so far managed to resist this random compulsion. However, the experience has left me with a niggling feeling. I feel like a curious teenager about to fall for the darkly enticing sales pitch of the common-room drug pusher: "Just try it. Where's the harm? You might even like it. Go on, just a taste..." Maybe that's it? Maybe I'm afraid I'll actually like Twitter.

My problem with micro-blogging is summed up in this video. I'm just not sure I care about other people's whimsical thoughts or generally mundane utterances. And if I'm having a particularly rubbish time of things, I don't want to face a daily barrage of infuriatingly perky tweets from people that are having a mind-blowingly phenomenal time. Do I want to let something into my life that will only fuel my occasional bitterness and exacerbate fleeting feelings of isolation?

Of course, this argument falls down (in fact, crashes through the floor) when you consider that I use Facebook on a daily basis, where status updates corner the market in banality and hundreds of photo albums ensure that I not only get to read about my friend's fantastic lives, but I get to flick through the photosets as well! (I'm writing this at the arse-end of six dark months of unemployment, so you must forgive my miserableness.)

A lot of people tend to update their Facebook status on a daily basis whether they have anything interesting or mildly amusing to offer or not. Irritatingly, when such people discover that they're without a status they will often rely on song lyrics to fill the void. News feeds are then cluttered with updates like: "Katie...is insane in the membrane" or "Rob...doesn't think it's fair to blame it on the sunshine. And there isn't any hard evidence to hold the moonlight accountable either". This can often snowball with the entire lyrical content of a song being posted, thanks to a flood of comments from bored friends who will happily chip in with the odd line (or at worst, an entire verse).

I'm not saying my status updates are anything to brag about. But I rarely update for the sake of it. In fact, I've only updated my status 13 times in the last month, which all seemed to largely centre around either food, dreams or my current joblessness. My point is that Twitter's raison d'être is status updates. But if I can only just about tolerate the 'status update' element of Facebook (and engage with it infrequently), then is Twitter's digital stream of consciousness really for me?

However, there are some things I really like about Twitter. For one, since the Mumbai terror attacks last November - when Twitterers provided real-time information about the attacks, leaving major news organisations to play catch-up - it has been the essential platform for citizen journalists.

Another example of this was shortly after US Airways flight 1549 crash-landed in the Hudson River in January. The first photo of the downed airliner (showing passengers huddled together on the plane's wings and in inflatable rafts) was posted on Twitter by Janis Krums with the message: "There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy." Twitter has a sort of 'breaking news' immediacy to it that excites me. What would a Facebooker have done in Krums' situation? (Apart from poke a few people, before forming the lyrics of The Primitives' 'Crash' into a witty status update.)

The other thing I like about Twitter is the opportunity it presents you to cultivate a following. Who wouldn't enjoy the casual ego boost of having a group of people following your every comment, amusing account, eagle-eyed observation or general musing (concisely expressed in just 140 characters at a time)? The flip-side, of course, is the soul-destroying emptiness you may well feel should you fail to attract such followers. If it's as gruelling as trying to establish a blog following, I'm not sure I have the stamina.

Ironically, I posted my Twitter quandary as a status update on Facebook, and had one friend reply with the following advice: "just do it". He went on to say: "Actually pretty certain I almost exposed a huge US government conspiracy via [Twitter] the other day - will message you later with details!" I'm still waiting to hear from him, but that nearly sold it to me!

So, I'm asking all you Twitterers out there - is it worth joining? Has Twitter benefited or even enhanced your lives? Has it made your social scene more diverse and enjoyable? Has it networked you further than you ever imagined? Or maybe even helped you professionally? What is the big deal?

I've already researched the best Twitter application for my iPhone. But for now, the question still remains: to tweet or not to tweet?