Everyplace you go it seems like half the population is glued to the phone.

Shopping, movie theaters, ball games, restaurants (nothing comes between me and food), people are tapping their phones.

At least now I understand the attraction.

I am officially a Twit. Or is it Tweet? Or maybe it’s a Tweeter.

Colleagues might say I got it right the first time.

Asked the definition of a Tweet a couple months ago and the answer would have been “the sound a small bird makes.”

Move over, Facebook. Here comes Twitter. For example, @ KellisRobinett tells us that Curry Sexton has been cleared to play in the Fiesta Bowl on Thursday. You won’t find that information coming from KSU because of Coach Bill Snyder’s strict policy not to talk about injuries. Like he did a year ago, the Abilene wide-receiver broke his collarbone, or so it said on Twitter.

For the past several years, I have carried around a cell phone that looks and acts much like a Sherman tank without the gun.

Drop it in a sand trap, wash it in my jeans, drop it in the toilet or run over it with the lawn mower and it still works.

My family’s first cell phone was a bag phone. Having a teenage daughter in high school, it was used only in emergency situations like the time she almost hit a deer.

“Calm down,” I told her. “Pull over and stop the car until you can relax. Did you hit the deer?”

“No,” she said, voice shaking.

As our son became a teenager, he had the more traditional cell phone that charged for calls by the minute. His cell bill usually had 560 one-minute calls. Come to find out most of the calls were actually less than 30-second conversations.

“Where are you?”

“In the high school parking lot.”

“Where have you been?”

“McDonald’s.”

“Where are you going?”

“Cement park.”

Translation: Little Ike Park in downtown Abilene.

Later the cell phone companies added text messaging. They charged by the text and high schoolers started making 560 coded text messages.

“c u @ park 2nite”

“cyl bff”

“t2ul”

“Translations: “I will see you at the cement park tonight.” “See you later, best friend forever.” “Talk to you later.”

Today with the iPad and the android phone, the world is now at one’s fingertips.

I know because I got one three weeks ago.

My son and I were acting like two tweens comparing apps. I know because I was told I was by my wife.

“You guys are like a couple of 12-year-olds,” Kathy said as we stood in the middle of the kitchen floor while she tried to move around us, fixing lunch then cleaning up.

Everything is at the touch of a finger.

In fact, the No. 3 thing the cell phone is used for these days is the phone option. Texting tops the list.

I used to have to tap “ab gh mno m de jkl a t abe” just to text “b home late.”

Also at the tap of a finger I can access Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, text messages, Skype, YouTube, the weather, my bank statement or I can actually make a phone call.

Plus there are 670,000 Google apps to search. No wonder everyone is glued to the phone.

The Abilene Reflector-Chronicle is now experimenting with Twitter along with the web page and Facebook. You can follow us @AbileneRCks. Yep, we’re starting the new year with new technology. Just don’t practice in the middle of the kitchen.