“Old-school social networking was playing squash with a Kennedy, who then got your son a summer job on Capitol Hill,” sniffs the Washington Post’s Norman Chad. “New-school social networking is posting a note to friends and paparazzi that you just bought a Juiceman that you’re going to try after getting home from Pilates class.”  And with that, the Couch Slouch unloads on the sports-Twitter craze (“not only are we all going to hell in a handbasket, but we all apparently will be texting about it.”)

Poker champion Phil Hellmuth — who believes his life is an open book that should be read around the clock — is a serial Twitwit. Here are some of his recent tweets:

“Just drank Cristal at my home with Gavin Smith, Layne Flack, Jeff Madsen and Joe Sebok!”

“I am a writing machine! I wrote . . . 4,000 words for my autobiography today!”

“I am at Starbucks . . . eating and going to the driving range.”

If Hellmuth has a significant bowel movement today, I’ll be the first to know.

People now get on cellphones to tell friends they just walked in or out of a movie theater. They write blogs about trips to the motor-vehicle bureau. They post photos of themselves on Facebook standing in line at Radio Shack buying batteries.

Imagine the informational misery previous generations were spared because Twitter wasn’t around yet.

Michelangelo: “Sistine Chapel ceiling larger than it looks; back is killing me.”

Christopher Columbus: “No sign of land yet.”

Robert Peary: “Man, it’s cold up here.”