Trust me, there is such a thing as too much information.

Yes, I'm referring to you Jonathan Ross; we don't care if you're having muesli for breakfast. And as for you, Erykah Badu, I'm sure your labour was painful, but we could have done without a contraction-by-contraction account of the gory details.

And as for every other idiotic Twitter user out there with too much time on your hands; nobody cares that you missed your bus, that you like almond shower gel, or that you've just been dumped. Get a life.

For the record, I haven't always been so anti-Twitter, but all it took was one former US national security advisor to suggest that it deserves a Nobel Peace Prize and suddenly my hackles were rising.

The genius in question is one Mark Pfeifle, former aide to George Bush and a swooning admirer of the micro-blogging phenomenon. He reckons Twitter's ability to communicate the extent of the political crisis in Iran puts it right up there with Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Ky.

True, at the height of the controversy, 220,000 "tweets" were being sent by Iranians every hour, revealing the true horror of civil unrest even as authorities were blocking access to more conventional communication tools.

It's not the only example of the incredible power of this quirky service. Earlier this year, as bush fires swept across Australia, the country's fire authority tweeted regular alerts to endangered residents, saving lives in the process.

There's no doubt that with its capability of reaching millions of people within seconds, Twitter is impressive.

At its best, it's a force for good. The problem is that it's also a force for idiocy.

It's ironic that users spend so much time updating the sites, which are supposed to reflect their social lives, that they don't actually have time to live the aforementioned social lives any more.

And just when it seemed like the cult of online networking and blogging might have reached its boiling point, along came Mark Pfeifle.

For God's sake Mark, don't encourage them.

Purely in the interests of research, I set up a Twitter account and embarked on a spot of celebrity "following".

Andy Murray's Twitter stream revealed the titbit that David Beckham had sent him a good luck text before his Wimbledon semi-final. Oh, the excitement.

That, dear reader, was about as good as it got from the famous people.

Beyond that was an apocalyptic vision of random Joe and Jane Soaps twittering incessantly about their poached eggs, their new nail varnish, the view from their window. On and on it goes, a horror show of bored no-hopers.

My cruel side compels me to question why these people don't instead spend their time with their friends. Then again, if they're shallow enough to paint the drab details of their lives on a public internet forum, they probably don't have any friends. More to be pitied than laughed at, I say.

P.S. My Twitter account? Duly deleted

afinneran@herald.ie

- Aoife Finneran