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Prehistoric conversations around the communal fire were probably no more scintillating than the average Tweet. Life's deepest mysteries may always linger, but these are the eternal questions: How was your day? What are you up to?

Twitter allows us to do what we always have on a larger stage.

We are self-absorbed and we like to be in control. Twitter satisfies both impulses.

Direct interaction is unpredictable. One of the joys and tribulations of conversation is the pressure of real-time give and take.

Instead of forcing us to be our warts-and-all selves it allows us, at least in theory, to control the face we show the world.

it feeds our inherent narcissism, enabling us to prattle on without fear of watching boredom spread across another's face

Twitter marks an advance in freedom. How we use it is up to us. The Twitter backlash may be necessary, but it is also doomed. For the fault lies not in our Tweets but in ourselves.