Actually, you can avoid a lot of that by keeping control of who you are following and who's following you.
I only follow about 70 people - 55 or so are colleagues and peers, another 5 are close friends, and the rest are various tech people or news tweets.
A good example of how we use Twitter - today, the entire school district's internet access went down. I was one of the first to contact our district help desk and found out it was a wide-spread problem. I "tweeted" this information via my Blackberry, and many of my fellow computer teachers did not have to spend time on hold with the help desk because they found out it was a district, not a school, issue.
A lot of us use our phones to tweet - I do because my job takes me out of my lab and around the building.
EDIT: I take it back, I do have one friend who frequently tweets when she is going to the hair salon or day spa. So I guess I do get a little of it, but not as much as others.
BTW, I just finished my third Diet Coke of the day and I am still tired!
I do understand where those of you are coming from about being able to get information out there fast when needed.
I'd still rather get a phone call or an email if someone wants to know what I have been up to in my life and what not. I personally don't get some of the random ramblings of celebs or civilians and why people find it fascinating to "follow" them.
A girl at work just told me that she follows over 100 people on twitter. She said most of them are just people that she happened upon or was told about through her group of friends. She also follows a lot of random bloggers. I think that many people follow bloggers or tweets because they are either bored in their own lives and feel like they are living vicariously through others or they just have nothing better to do.
I use to follow a blog by a family that started their own urban homestead (pathtofreedom.com), but I haven't read it in a few years.
I'm with you, Lucia. I get email on my phone, and it's not limited to 160 words per email. It's perfectly adequate for keeping up with friends, with family, and even with subscribed threads on the HTF.