Is Twitter a Matter of Life and Death?

The following is taken from this morning's e-version of The Globe and Mail. It provided interesting food for thought this morning as I munched on my toast, so I thought I would share:

"It occurred to me the other day that people like to Twitter because they're afraid of dying.

Twitter, once solely the concern of technophiles and new media pundits, is now a firm part of mainstream culture, both online and off. What does the mass adoption of such a seemingly simple tool say about our values? Is it an exercise of pure vanity, or does the microblog serve some need?

At noon eastern time, Globe feature writer Ian Brown will examine our urge to tweet, 140 characters at a time. Follow his thoughts and share your own using the live blog below, or via his Twitter account @Brownoftheglobe."

I'll be following along with interest. Will you?