Well, according to John Naughton, quoting Jonathan Swift – inappropriately, I might add. The reason? I am not a fan of Twitter.
“When a true genius appears in the world”, wrote Jonathan Swift, “you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in a confederacy against him”. Thus it was in July 2006 when Twitter appeared. It was a “microblogging” service that allowed one to broadcast one’s thoughts to the world, on one condition: that they should be expressible in not more than 140 characters.
I thought it was a work of genius the first moment I laid eyes on it.
Whereas I didn’t and still don’t. You cannot engage in a nuanced discussion in 140 characters. It is difficult enough sometimes in several hundred words to get a point across without misunderstanding. The reality of Twitter is that for the most part, it is inane drivel. When it has become used as a movement to rally the troops it has been little more than an online mob with all of the downsides of the real thing; bullying and intimidation. So, a work of genius, no.
But most normal people, and not a few of my friends, thought otherwise. The avalanche of incredulity, ridicule and scepticism that greeted anyone who came out as a “tweeter” in those early days is hard to imagine now, five years on. But it seemed real enough at the time.
Er, it still is. There are plenty of us who have decided not to follow the fad and who do not wish to express ourselves in 140 character soundbites or follow the witterings of those who do.
What sets Twitter apart from social networking services such as Facebook is the absence of any expectation of reciprocity.
Some of us don’t bother with Facebook, either. And for much the same reason – inane drivel. Oh, sorry, social networking. Nah, inane drivel. Okay, that can be said of all sorts of discussion platforms including this one – but at least with fora and blogs there is the opportunity to engage in some depth and explore the arguments without a silly maximum character cut-off.
If you decide to “follow” my twitterstream, then I’m under no obligation to follow yours. Unlike email, a tweet carries no expectation of a reply, and so there’s no heavy burden of obligation. The result is what one might call, pace Milan Kundera, the bearable lightness of tweeting.
Pseud’s corner here we come. Look, there has never been a requirement for reciprocity. Even with the awful Facebook, you are under no obligation to link with people that you choose not to. It has an ignore facility. Likewise with other services such as LinkedIn. Twitter offers nothing new in this regard.
Still eventually, Naughton gets to the political dissident use we have seen in recent years. And, to be fair, there is a partial argument to be made here. People did use it as a medium when others were denied them. So, yes, I can see a use here, although revolutions have managed perfectly well before without it.
Because it’s easy to use on mobile phones, it has become an invaluable tool for dissidents and protesters everywhere. When WikiLeaks lost its DNS service, for example, and suddenly web browsers were unable to find the URL, the temporary IP addresses circulated as tweets.
It could just have easily been distributed by other means. That doesn’t make Twitter special.
So what once seemed like a joke has become deadly serious.
No, it’s still a joke, it’s still primarily inane drivel and a waste of pixels.
And we’d miss it if it disappeared.
No, I wouldn’t. Nor would all those real life people I meet who have never used it, either.
Neither a twitterer or a facebooker be.
Both Twitter and Facebook are typical in their own ways of life today. Twitter, with its character limit, leads to short, sharp observations (or short facile ones, of course), which perfectly suits the climate of instant opinion, expressed without the need for pause or thought. Facebook, with all the room for personal exposure of all kinds, perfectly suits the post-Diana ‘look-at-me’ culture, where nothing is real unless it has been made public and discussed by your ‘friends’. Paradise for the emotionally incontinent. I’ll stick with proper blogs where you can write in continuous prose at whatever length you choose and say what you want to say.
…For Facebook shares too much with friends,
And tweeting dulls the edge of colloquy.
To all the above : +1
+1 and everyone I know under the age of 22.
That quotation from Swift comes from Thoughts on Various Subjects, so it is only fair to offer another one apposite to Mr Naughton:
“Some people take more care to hide their wisdom than their folly.”
Perhaps the “genius” was that enough people fell for it to make the inventors a lot of money?
And the above thought is under 140 charectars.