This has to be some kind of a record for self-referential narcissism clustered on the use of what could easily prove to be a faddish Web app. Active China-based users of Twitter, who’ve apparently been identified and placed on a list by major Twitter-addict Christine Lu (the California-based founder of the China Business Network) have now been subjected to a sort of statistical analysis by my buddy Elliott Ng here. Elliott contributes to the group blog CNReviews, where his study is posted. Joining him in this blog project is the proudly polyglot, Chinese-born Swiss national Mac enthusiast named David Feng who, as is easily discerned by the content of his prolific posts on Twitter, has what I’d charitably describe as an unusual obsession with Beijing’s subway lines and stations. David, who I’ve not yet met,  was also one of the organizers of a Beijing “Tweet-up,” in which addicts gathered in a local English-language bookstore/lending library and — you got it — sent Twitter messages to one another and to others who happened to be following them.

Each to his own, of course. But am I wrong in thinking that there’s something not quite healthy and weirdly solipsistic about this? Mind you, I do find Twitter useful, as I made clear in a post of mine last week — a post which, as if to prove the point it made, rode a wave of Twitter-distribution to become one of my most widely-read posts to date. But if we all start looking like a bunch of excitable dorks (which many clearly are) we’ll scare away people who actually might make truly useful contributions — links to great stories, life hacks, great recommendations on apps or software or books or eats, real insights into the things that matter: things predicated on actually having a life.