Blogs, Facebook and Twitter: the new e-pulpits?

I browse many websites.

I read many blogs.

And I'm definitely a Facebook and Twitter fan.

Via Twitter and Facebook, you can tell your followers and friends what you're doing, thinking or feeling in a particular moment. (A friend of mine once described a tweet as a 'brain fart'.)

Social networking sites are fun. They create a sense of online community and shared interests, and it's exciting to be part of stimulating and ultra-topical e-conversations.

Twitter is a particularly interesting phenomenon.

Many personal development and marketing identities use Twitter's 140-character long update box to share words of wisdom and perspectives on life.

The reason? To offer value to their followers. And they can kill two birds with one stone (sorry, Twitter bird!) by linking their tweets to their Facebook status.

I've found it fascinating to observe how some of the people I follow on Twitter – including some of the personal development 'gurus' – have started to sound like self-important preachers and evangelists.

Is it because of the language they're using?

Or is it me?

Am I not open-minded enough to hear the messages without sermonising overtones?

Am I particularly sensitive and over-exposed?

In fact, I believe it's simply about context.

Many of the great 'quotable quotes' we know and love came from memorable, significant speeches and transformational writings.

Twitter, however, is a 140-character e-pulpit with no room for a background story or how a particular life lesson was learned.

Communicating this way via social networking sites – and via Twitter in particular – is not conducive to providing a context. Of course there's room to include a link to the full story. It just doesn't work in isolation.

These pearls of wisdom have become like annoying rough stones in my shoe.

So I'll just unfollow, unfriend or unplug.

Because of course it's not you. It's me.

What do you think?