Twitter Flu

Last week was rough -- I had a giant presentation to give on Friday, and I spent all week working on it. I didn't sleep very much, and what started out as a minor cold on Tuesday had grown into two ear infections, pinkeye, a completely stuffed-up nose, a sore throat, and no voice whatsoever by Saturday. Lame.
My friend in New York also happened to get sick this weekend. We stayed in our respective bedrooms, occasionally texting one another about soup or tea or the movies we finally got around to watching. "My roommates think I have swine flu," she joked. I had been hearing the bad, then worsening news about the spread of swine flu every time I checked my Yahoo! email account, but these articles were from official press outlets. I wondered if they were sensationalizing (or understating) the public's reaction to this potential pandemic. Curious, I went back to Twitter Search to see just what the Twittering population was saying.

Some sample quotes:

"If i get the swine flu Ima be more upset to use the adjective "swine" to describe myself then i will be about the possibility of dying!"

"I have a scratchy throat which normally I wouldn't think twice about except this stupid swine flu crap that is going around..."

"@mileycyrus OMG MILEY YOU HAVE TO BE CAREFUL!! ALWAYS WASH YOUR HANDS PLEASEEEEEEE I DONT WANT YOU TO GET THE SWINE FLU AND ALOT OF PEOPLE"

"Does the swine flu mean no more bacon double cheeseburgers?"

And my personal favorite: "i think i have swan flu"

So even though some commentators think that twittering about swine flu spreads more panic than it does information, I'd have to disagree. Twitter is just coming out of the early adopter stage, which means that the people who use it the most are the under-30 crowd. And frankly, most of us aren't taking it that seriously. I saw more updates where friends joked about getting swine flu than I did alarmist messages (or impassioned advice to Miley Cyrus).