In the words of Hilary Clinton
"I wouldn't know a Twitter from a tweeter, but apparently, it's very important" Morozov 2009If I was American I'd probably have voted for her based on this comment alone.
I only tweet as part of my 40% online presence requirements because I just don't understand the appeal or the interface.
When Twitter first came out I had no idea what it was about or what it's purpose was and despite having a Twitter account, reading many articles on it and being alerted to the fact that 140 word posts are the future, I still don't like it.
In the lecture, Ted explained that the internet combined individual conversations and mass broadcasting and because of this it changed the way we receive and interact with information. The abundance of information available to anyone with an Internet connection grew exponentially and due to this, the value of information decreased.
I think this is an important point because this influx of invaluable information defines Twitter in my eyes, I find it difficult to use because of the thousands of meaningless comments and opinions which sandwich relevant and reliable information.
In Steven Johnson's article "How Twitter Will Change the way we Live," it is important to note that rather than highlight its scarce positive attributes as Ted did, he attempted to put a positive shine on the thing I hate most about Twitter... People Tweeting about their breakfast. Johnson has said that this kind of insight into their daily lives has created an "ambient awareness" and "social warmth", to me it creates a person with very few followers.
He also puts up an example of how Twitter was incorporated into a conference and that the input from strangers created a second layer of discussion, I understand how this can be exciting and valuable to hear people's thoughts first-hand. However, because of the way Twitter is all of these thoughts would come flooding in at the same time and it is so difficult to keep up with. In the words of Morozov, "Twitter adds to the noise".
In keeping with my point of unnecessary and inconsequential tweeting, I have found that when people have used Twitter in a positive way, for example, alerting others of some danger eg Tsunamis, earthquakes etc, I find myself thinking "Why are these people Tweeting about this? Shouldn't they be running?!" To me, this is the worst aspect of Twitter, it is the epitome of time wasting, actually putting yourself in danger to make time to Tweet is taking our need for immediacy having to know everything first all the time wayyyyy toooo farrrrrr.
In conclusion, I apologise for the longer than usual blog post but I really hate Twitter and if our attention spans didn't decrease because of the internet and we didn't have platforms such as Twitter to nurture it then it wouldn't be such an issue.
P.S I'm waiting for a Twitter lover to challenge me on my views, but I warn you, I will always hate it.
Johnson, S. (2009). How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live. Time [URL:
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1902604,00.html
Morozov, E (2009), 'Iran: Downside to the "Twitter revolution"', Dissent, pp10-14, vol.56, no.4, http://tinyurl.com/3l2jqvl
I too only tweet because of uni requirements however I was enlightened after this week’s lecture the purpose of twitter. Before I thought it was just like status updates on Facebook which I rarely do usually because I have nothing witty enough to say, however after Ted explained the use of hash tags in the example of the Bangkok incident, I finally saw the light. I don’t think twitter will change my life and I most likely will not use it after this subject however I get the purpose of it now and kudos to the creators for that.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you are giving Twitter a chance. I mean, there is a reason that it is the second most popular social networking website, so a great deal of people must find it useful.
ReplyDeleteIt is more of a service to complement Facebook, not to replace. And in response to your 'breakfast' criticism, it's not like anyone is forcing anyone to follow someone who does this. With the people I follow, I simply click the unfollow button should they make three or more irrelevant posts in a row.
I don't think people in general understand HOW to use Twitter. You're correct in saying that no one really cares what someone had for breakfast. But Twitter is useful in locating information. For example, I went to drive home by the Hume Highway, and because of Twitter I found out that there were delays of up to three hours because there was a fatality after an incident.
If you are willing to invest the time and effort in Twittter to mine through the available data, than it is extremely rewarding.
I think you should give Twitter another go.