As far as self-explanatory blog titles go, this one certainly takes the cake in terms of removing the mystery of my point of view. For those who wish the point hammered home, I’m not a fan of Twitter. For me, Twitter is the bumper sticker of the online realm: a rather hit-or-miss attempt at self-expression that has only one certainty – you will be judged, for better or for worse, by what you stick on your car/Twitter page.
Today’s post was inspired by this story on the PopSci front page that speaks of a NASA-created robot that now has a Twitter account. While I personally find that idea to be rather funky, it did get me a-thinking about the problems I have with the Twitter phenomenon.
At its core, the 140-character limit for each post offends my verbose sensibilities, but beyond this affront is the reality that Twitter not only enables but actively encourages short, diary entry-type posts. And not the juicy diary entries that would be of some interest mind you; instead, the variety that offers some form of mundane information about our daily goings-on.
Like most things in this world that vex me, Twitter is not without its TPP-approved positives. Websites can use Twitter to spread particular articles far and wide, businesses can use Twitter to keep customers updated with crucial information (such as a recent outage from my web-hosting company) and household names, such as celebrity types, can share menial information that is more meaningful because of their social status. Begrudging acknowledgements of positives aside, it is what I refer to as the ‘Twitter mentality’ that has me rather concerned.
For starters, the Twitter mentality has well and truly invaded Facebook. As far as my memory is concerned, Facebook didn’t used to be rife with Twitter-like status updates about what people just ate or their latest frustration at some small subjective thing that doesn’t really translate to social reading.
Running with the Facebook example, I’ve always believed that status updates should be audience appropriate. While I’m certainly not endorsing the notion of self-censorship, what I am referring to is individual awareness of the fact that your latest thought/musing/meal update is going to be read by dozens, if not hundreds, of the people in your social network. For me, this necessitates a need to be interesting and/or entertaining; after all, you wouldn’t expect to walk out on a stage in front of hundreds of people and expect them to care about what you ate for lunch (unless, of course, it was interesting and/or entertaining), right?
What say you all?
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I like to think of Twitter as a lobotomised version of Facebook… take away everything except the status updates, and you’ve got Twitter. Well done? But it’s not just the TMI nature of the content… it’s that people now feel they have to keep current, to the minute. There are people who post inane statuses twenty times a day! I barely update my Facebook status once a week.
And to be honest, there’s not many people whose lives are interesting enough to warrant that kind of post regularity. So yeah, totally agree with you there.
Clearly you have a grave misunderstanding of Twitter.
“For starters, the Twitter mentality has well and truly invaded Facebook. As far as my memory is concerned, Facebook didn’t used to be rife with Twitter-like status updates about what people just ate or their latest frustration at some small subjective thing that doesn’t really translate to social reading.”
Clearly you have not used Facebook for long and never used Twitter at all. For starters Facebook has been rife with the “lunch” statuses since the beginning, way before Twitter. The most inane content gets posted to Facebook, which has led to the more intellectual of us to slowly abandon it for Twitter. On Twitter you can tailor your content and people to your interests, you are not stuck with whatever inanities your friends or old classmates has to offer.
Twitter is a great place for discussion, be it politics, events or just being social. It has a high average age level and is filled with intelligent people with smart and witty things to say. I have gained many friends to Twitter and even my current job. Perhaps it is time to revise your outdated opinions? This is a piece I’d expected to read two years ago, not half way through 2010 about a mature medium.
I love twitter for what they did for Iran during the uprising. That was awesome.
I hate it for every other reason. I agree whole heartedly. For the same reason i am not a big fan of Facebook. It bores me.
But Twitter has already solved that problem. You simply only follow the people that are worth following. If they’re tweeting what they had for dinner, unfollow.
That’s why I much prefer browsing Twitter over Facebook. You can’t “unfollow” your friends on Facebook without them getting angry at you.
@ Muffin - Totally agree.
@ Erik K Veland - Welcome to the PopSci blog and thanks for sharing your thoughts. I’ve been using Facebook for over four years now and have had to have an awareness and understanding of Twitter (although you’re right in that I don’t actively use it for my own personal means) for around two years. I find it interesting that you would move away from Facebook to Twitter as the 140-character limit (the crux of my ‘Twitter mentality’ phrase) more readily lends itself towards inane updates than meaningful thought-provoking conversation-starting status updates. As a verbose person, I’ve always rebelled against the notion of word/character limits (although I can acknowledge they are a necessary evil), and while I readily accept such challenges for work, in my personal life I do not enjoy such restrictions.
You mentioned that Twitter is a great place for discussion on a variety of topics, all of which I’ve had on Facebook. Of course, Facebook is not without its tripe from friends posting the mundane to their world, but I don’t see that Facebook and intelligence are mutually exclusive things. I will certainly take a closer look at Twitter taking your suggestions into account.
@ Dude from Sydney - Both are somewhat necessary evils to me right now… if there was an easier way to be in touch with so many people-be they friends, family or work-related folk-that didn’t sport the negatives of both social networking websites, I’d be all over it.
@ Andre - Welcome to the blog and thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. Ah yes, I am aware of this facility and its absence in the world of Facebook. I’m about to go through a purge of my Facebook friends and am getting rather excited about the concept of not having to browse through mostly useless status updates to find the interesting/entertaining ones that I care about. Is it bad that the thought of deleting such people excites me?