I’ve stepped onto a slippery slope. Or maybe I’m just sliding further down the slope I stepped onto a long time ago.

I’ve started Tweeting.

If you haven’t jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, you might be wondering what a “tweet” is. Tweets are updates that users make to their Twitter profiles, answering one simple question: “What are you doing?”

Still lost? It’s OK, I still don’t have it completely figured out either. But as our society becomes increasingly linked by technology, Twitter is now at the forefront of the social networking craze, giving tech-savvy people one more reason to log on and sign in.

Twitter was developed as a side project from the podcasting service Odeo. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, inspired by the status messages used in instant messaging, wondered what could come of a service that allowed users to update their friends of their current status without having to write an entire blog post. Working with co-founder Biz Stone and others, Dorsey connected his idea with text messages in 2006.

Before long, the people behind Twitter were using the Internet and cell phone services in a way no one else had yet developed. The service went on to win the 2007 South by Southwest Web Award in the blog category, and use is speculated by some to be in the millions — at least three million — however, Stone has said that the company will not reveal “actual numbers of users, messages created, messages distributed, or other data that reveals the size of our service.”

The secrecy behind the numbers only adds to the intrigue of this social networking-blogging hybrid. Twitter has mass appeal beyond any ordinary trend. Who’s tweeting? Everyone from CNN to Rolling Stone to Britney Spears to the kid who sits next to you in that giant lecture to the president of the United States, Barack Obama.

For better or worse, I have — in an impulsive moment of weakness — added myself to that list.

My initial misgivings about Twitter were the same concerns that plague me regarding Facebook, MySpace and Xanga — all sites that I use or have used at some point in my life. Xanga, best described as a blogging community, served my self-centered middle school interests perfectly, giving me ample space to talk about what was on my mind in hopes that friends would care and comment on the posts.

MySpace was a passing interest in high school, but it became almost too accessible and a bit creepy — just in time for Facebook to roll in and let high schoolers in on the sweeping college trend. My friends and I didn’t have a chance — we were Facebook addicts before we even set foot on our various college campuses. And now, in my second semester of college, I have been introduced to the enigmatic draw of Twitter.

But with each of these services, as I gain more real world experience and learn to question rather than settle for complacency, I find myself wondering if we as a society are becoming too connected. Could it be that the more available we are in the online realm, the less available we are in a tangible sense?

As we describe ourselves in online profiles and carry on entire conversations through wall posts and tweets, are we placing ourselves into boxes in which our profiles end up defining us? I worry that members of our generation will let their search for themselves end at questions like “What’s your favorite drink?” or at a 25 Random Things note.

We mustn’t leave the questioning up to the scientists and philosophers. It’s important to embrace new technology and new forms of communication. Essential, even. But embracing is not the same as blind acceptance.

Do your Facebook friends and Twitter followers really need to know what you’re doing at 2 a.m. or where you’re having coffee tomorrow? This constant updating of details tricks us into thinking we know our online “friends” on an intimate level, when in reality we’re nowhere near the intimacy that could be achieved through person-to-person conversations. Use these services to your advantage, but don’t let them create a false sense of connectedness.

When even our president has jumped on the bandwagon, it’s clear that Twitter is a cultural force to which we should pay attention. It is, if nothing else, an incredibly innovative way to access news, with organizations like the New York Times and NPR updating their “tweets” constantly as newsworthy — although I must use that term loosely — events occur. This technology will very likely change our lives, but it is up to each of us to determine whether that change is positive or negative.

Personally, I use the site primarily to follow breaking news updates from my favorite sources: Rolling Stone, the New York Times, CNN, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, The Des Moines Register and NPR. The social networking aspect is lost on me. Call me crazy, but the idea of limiting my correspondence with friends to 140-character “tweets” seems cold and more than a little off-putting.

This technology is an incredible development, just like Facebook was a few years ago. But let the recent Facebook terms of use controversy be a reminder that it is dangerous to blindly follow any new form of technology or networking. Take advantage of the technology to which our society has access, but proceed with caution.

And if you find yourself on Twitter, go ahead and send a request to “follow” me — just please check the breaking news updates to learn something about the world outside your computer while you’re at it.

— Jessica Opoien is a freshman in pre-journalism and mass communication from Marinette, Wisc.