(CNN) -- Shel Israel is not the kind of person you'd expect to find on Twitter all day. He's 65.



Shel Israel, author of a new book on Twitter. He says the micro-blogging service changed his life.



But Israel has been using the micro-blogging service longer than most. In fact, he gave up his lifelong habit of reading the newspaper every day about four years ago and turned exclusively to social media.



He now knows how to use Twitter, how not to use it, and how to benefit from it, and he says Twitter has changed his life.



The social-media journalist and public speaker is the author of  a new book, "Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods." The book shows how Twitter flattens geographical boundaries and helps people connect with others around the world who share their interests.



To Israel, it's the mundane details of one's life, shared through tweets and status updates, that matter. He believes that tweeting about what you had for lunch can actually help build a meaningful personal or business relationship.



Israel also says that who you follow on Twitter is much more important than the number of people who follow you. That's because the people you follow become "your newspaper -- the way you get the information that you see, that you digest, and that you use."



Here is an edited version of the conversation.



CNN: Your timing in writing this book seems perfect -- Twitter just blew up. Did you see this boom coming?



Israel: Yeah I did, but not with this great prescience. I just thought it was going to get bigger and bigger, and I thought there was a value to Twitter that no other social media tool had.  See part of our chat with Israel here »



What are those values you mentioned that only Twitter has?



There are two values and they're closely intertwined. The first is that Twitter lets people behave online more closely to how we behave in real life than anything that ever preceded it in history. It's kind of past now, but there was this whole wave of admonition of nobody cares what you had for lunch, and to be honest that's absolutely false.



If I said that I was in a restaurant in Atlanta, [Georgia,] you'd say, "Oh, where did you go? You didn't by chance try the..." and we have a conversation that way. We care about the details of life. When you bring this into business, I don't think many members of your audience ever bought or sold anything from a conversation that starts with, "Are you going to buy something?" It begins with small talk.



And that brings us to the second point. The brevity creates an interaction that no other media tool allows. Until now most social media is I write or create something, and you read it and comment back. In Twitter, it's so brief that no one is the lead conversationalist, really. And it isn't about what you post in 140 characters, it's about the number of spoonfuls of content that you feed people who are interested in eating it.



Why are you so fascinated by Twitter? Most people your age don't use social media at all.



I was born too soon? (Laughs) I don't know what it is about me, but it's what drew me to Silicon Valley in the first place -- I just get turned on by new ideas and new trends. I am extremely curious by nature. I like meeting people who think and act differently than I do. And that I think keeps me young, along with the fact that I spend much of my time with people younger than me. And they seem to value the fact that this older guy has some wisdom, but they don't understand how much I'm learning from them.



You tell a lot of specific Twitter anecdotes in your book. Do you have a favorite character?



I have a few real favorites
Who is the author of a new book about Twitter? Who is Shel Israel?
Shel Israel, author
question: Who is the author of a new book about Twitter?, answer: Shel Israel, | question: Who is Shel Israel?, answer: author