Even the most tolerant netsurfer might become exhausted by the “public timeline” at twitter.com, where thousands of people across the globe answer the simple question “what are you doing?” in 140 characters or fewer – either by tapping them in on a computer, or sending an SMS from a mobile phone. “I’m currently researching vulnerability management,” is the news from a chap called Nathan, while “Browsing the web” is the somewhat redundant update from David in Toledo. If you sign up to the service, you have the opportunity to be notified of your friends’ movements, thoughts and sandwich fillings, and Twitter’s founder, Evan Williams, claims that it will become “the pulse of society, the first place people go to share information”. The last few weeks has certainly seen the site struggle to cope with the torrent of minutiae being dumped upon it – including such potentially dangerous admissions as “Cycling to work”.

But, for many of you, this distillation of blogging into a single sentence is the absurd culmination of social networking. “I’m so tired of receiving invitations to join websites with ‘friends’ and ‘updates’,” writes Keith Hunt. “It’s a perfect example,” emailed Tom Wetheredge, “of how the internet can keep us too connected. The constant flow of information isn’t just unnecessary, it’s intrusive.” Twitter’s notification system, which can fire off an SMS to your mobile phone whenever your friends update, can certainly feel like being electronically harrassed – particularly if you have a lot of friends, and your phone has an irritating ringtone. In the US, where many have to pay to receive a text, the mobile companies are coining substantial sums as a result and, even in the UK, sending updates to Twitter can be charged at a premium rate. As Josh N summed up, “It’s fantastic if you relish a lack of privacy and enjoy running up big phone bills. But in a good way.”

If you cut your mobile phone out of the loop and check for updates online at your leisure, the service is free, and can be useful – even fun: the latest World Cup cricket scores appear regularly; someone has made a valiant attempt to keep users updated with London Underground delays; and even 2008 Presidential hopeful John Edwards is posting messages as he pinballs around the USA. It’s also the perfect receptacle for idle thoughts and Steven Wright-style one-liners, according to writer Leila Johnston. “Normal blogs are over-run with soporifically tedious and self-indulgent details,” she writes. “While Twitter isn’t immune to the problem, the dullards are at least gagged after 140 characters, and rest of us rise to the challenge.” One user, at twitter.com/rhodri, is certainly finding it slightly addictive – at least for the moment.