Gefan (
http://www.slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... 182#p55182) said:
I have to ask; how many actual homeless people are busy tweeting?
While that appears a fair question on the surface, I think the situation could be somewhat more nuanced than it appears.
When I was homeless, one of the things I noticed was that I had a fuck of a lot of free time. There is only so much a homeless, broke person can do to fill their time. There are only so many jobs one can apply to, and of course you cannot do things like sit around watching TeeVee, going to movies, hang out at the pub or at a restaurant with your friends. And you can only walk so much -- energy levels for the homeless tend to be pretty low, in part because of emotional lethargy and sorrow, and in part because nutrition tends to be really poor.
Also, it is both surprising and rather heart rending how many former friends and family, even from enlightened famlies, tend to revile and distance themselves from people who have become homeless. So, you spend a lot of time sitting on the park bench wondering where your life went. When I was homeless almost all of my former friends, and indeed all of my family stopped communicating with me. I was amazed, truly amazed.
People who are not homeless, and who have never been homeless, tend to overlook how much time in their day is spent doing things that require money and resources that homeless people simply do not have, or require a home and a community, to fill their time.
Lastly, here in Vancouver, the libraries have free-use computers, so tweeting and blogging is almost as easy for a homeless person as it is for anyone else. It is also a healthy and emotionally important way to fill the time and overcome the soul-drenching boredom and feelings of failure, uselessness, and hopelessness.