David Carr writes in the NY Times that Twitter is the solution to information overload.

…has Twitter turned my brain to mush? No, I’m in narrative [Blogger: "In narrative"?] on more things in a given moment than I ever thought possible, and instead of spending a half-hour surfing in search of illumination, I get a sense of the day’s news and how people are reacting to it in the time that it takes to wait for coffee at Starbucks. Yes, I worry about my ability to think long thoughts — where was I, anyway? — but the tradeoff has been worth it.

“The tradeoff has been worth it”? That’s a pretty casual attitude about an implied lost ability to think “long thoughts.” (And it sounds like Carr’s definition of long isn’t all that long.)

This is a bit of a cheap shot, but since Carr himself has written about it extensively, I’ll go there: I wonder if his fondness for Twitter has anything to do with his much self-documented addictive personality. Wouldn’t Twitter hold particular appeal for a cocaine/adrenaline/information junkie?

Especially when Carr writes like this:

At first, Twitter can be overwhelming, but think of it as a river of data rushing past that I dip a cup into every once in a while….

Carr doesn’t address this, but says it’s about the access to information.

By carefully curating the people you follow, Twitter becomes an always-on data stream from really bright people in their respective fields, whose tweets are often full of links to incredibly vital, timely information.

Not just vital, timely information, but incredibly vital, timely information.

I’ll buy that for niche audiences with a need for fast and specific information, Twitter will have value. But really—how many people need to be that wired that fast? How much instantaneous information do we really need?

I’m reminded of the old Michael Crichton novel, Terminal Man, which I read when I was a boy. (It made an impression.)

In the book, a man prone to brain seizures which lead to acts of violence undergoes an experimental procedure in which electrodes are implanted in his brain. The electrodes detect signs of a coming seizure and deliver an electric shock to stop it.

But the experiment backfires when the patient starts to enjoy the shocks…and his brain figures out a way to bring them on repeatedly, overstimulating the brain and turning him even more violent than he was before.

Somehow Twitter strikes me as similar—with the end result being not violence, but a mental crash, the inability to think beyond a constant stream of incoming Tweets…