UPDATED: Twitter not changing the way J.J. Abrams lives

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

CORRECTION: JJ Abrams does not have a Twitter account.

If you think there was anybody who would be connecting to their fan base through Twitter it would be TV producer/movie director/cosmic genius J.J. Abrams. His hits, ‘Lost,’ ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Fringe’ speak to the Twitter generation (did we really just use that phrase?). He creates the types of shows that attract not just loyal, but rabid fans, the exact type of people who would obsess over everything he thinks and does.

So we were more than a little surprised when we stumbled onto Abram’s Twitter page from someone else we follow. The number of followers (41,431) seemed about right, maybe even a little low. But it was Abrams’ lack of participation in the the social networking site that Time magazine declared last week will ‘change the way we live’ that threw us into distressful space-time warp.

Apparently -- can this be possible? -- Twitter’s not changing the way Abrams lives. His last tweet was on December 8 of last year when he posted, ‘I totally forgot about Twitter ... really don’t have time for computers ... errr or anything.’

Shocking!

Actually, it’s not. Abrams’ Twitter experience is par for the course. According to Nielsen Media Research, 60% of Twitter’s users do not come back after their first month. Abrams tweeted four times on July 30, 2007 and seemed as lost as the rest of us when it comes to making use of the platform. He gave us the mundane (‘Coffee time!) and the confused (‘I still don’t know exactly how does this work’) and wasn’t afraid to ask the tough questions (‘How intimate can I be when posting about my private life? How often do I make updates ... so confused with this I have to admit’).

He then took the 17 months off before his tweet on December 8th. After that, as they say, the line went dead.

You’d think a someone famous like Abrams would have a publicist on hand to do his tweeting for him like so many other Hollywood power players, but don’t you know it, he doesn’t actually employ a personal publicist. He’s just one of those guys too busy doing his job to spend time telling the rest of us how busy he is.

Kudos to Abrams deciding not to document his every waking moment on Twitter. As for those 41,000 or so followers eagerly awaiting his next post, get a life.

-- Joe Flint