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To Twitter or Dodgeball at SXSW
March 10, 2007
I've never been one to run out and try the latest tech fad. I prefer to wait and watch them vanish like pet rocks or become so culturally ingrained that I'm embarrassed I'm not participating, like with the cell phone.
One of the latest fads is Twitter, the free social-networking service that lets people broadcast up-to-the-minute accounts of their thoughts and activities to their friends either through the Web site, an instant message or a mobile text message.
The premise didn't attract me initially. And after using the service for several days of research I've determined my instincts were right on target. Not only that, my experience has further proven to me that there are bigger differences between me and my twenty-something colleagues than just how fast our thumbs can text.
For one, what is up with this obsession the Twitter generation has with expressing itself and monitoring each others' lives? I don't understand the need to spew out personal information and random thoughts to the world. And that's just what Twitter is designed for: to be a medium through which you can share stream-of-conscious babblings with your friends and with anyone who has time to lurk on the Web site and read inane musings of strangers.
Food seems to be a big theme on Twitter. Glancing at random twitters recently, I found one user who was "drinking beer and 'cooking' fish fingers.'" Another felt compelled to disclose "MUST BATHE." Another was "getting bored." Others took the time to write how late in the day it is and how much work/fill-in-the-blank they have left to do. Well, maybe if they didn't spend so much time, um, twittering, they wouldn't be rushed. But these are strangers and it's obvious why I wouldn't care what they had for lunch. What about my own friends? Actually, I don't care what they just ate, either.
Thankfully, I wasn't able to get Twitter set up to receive messages on my phone, so I was spared that annoyance. And the site was having maintenance issues when I tried setting the service up on my instant messaging, so I twittered via the Twitter page. Users can display whatever background they want on their profile page. Otherwise, everyone shares the same white window showing the twitters of friends in reverse chronological order, alongside the pictures of their friends or whatever image they have chosen. The site asks "What are you doing?" And the answers on the public page, for the most part, read like a bad college poetry experiment in droll dada-ism.
Here is a string of twitters sent by someone with the alias "Duaners" over the course of six days:
1:15 a.m. May 26: 1am and just got back from the grocery store. :)
2:11 a.m. May 25: Tweakin' stuff on the server.
8:15 p.m. May 23: Just farted a huge ol long fart and finished watching American Idol. Congratulations Jordin!!!
3:54 p.m. May 23: Bored out of my freaking skull!!!
10:14 p.m. May 21: Grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!
I remember the days when people kept diaries to record their trivial thoughts intermixed with their profound emotions. They were private and hidden under beds or in sock drawers and some had locks on them. If you wanted to impress your friends with your clever thoughts or funny anecdotes you passed notes in class or gathered together to share the juicy details. That's not easy to do in 140 characters or less.
Is it me? Am I just crotchety and old-fashioned? I conducted an informal e-mail survey of about two dozen tech-savvy friends to see what they thought about Twitter. One, Web entrepreneur Josh, called himself a "twit" and said he enjoyed the "pointless one-liners" on Twitter. The remainder weren't interested in trying it. "I don't need to be confronted with how boring my life can be on a minute-by-minute basis," quipped Adam, a massage therapist. It's "narcissistic" and "self-indulgent, one-sided IM," said an editor friend. And quite a few expressed disgust at the thought of all of those twits exposing themselves to the world so casually.
Eric Auchard of Reuters eloquently wrote: "The great big science experiment in Web voyeurism strikes me as just another example of the Coyote Ugly dive bar approach to the Web...treating the world as if our lives were meant to be public spectacles at all times."
And this always-on, Web voyeurism does indeed seem to be a generational thing, although you can always find the odd old-timer microblogging on Twitter and the youngster who bucks the trend, snubbing the digital outlet in favor of having actual conversation.
Research conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project backs up my theory. While Pew hasn't yet focused on Twitter, it has studied the social-networking phenomenon, with which there is huge overlap. Its surveys have found that in the United States, 55 percent of all teenagers (ages 12 to 17) have social-network profiles, compared with 20 percent of all adult Internet users. Breaking it down by age, 50 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds have a profile on a social network; followed by 15 percent for those aged 30 to 49; 8 percent for those aged 50 to 64; and only 2 percent for those over 65.
My young colleagues who use Twitter say it is addicting and talk about conducting "twitter-ventions" to get reluctant friends onboard. I just can't grok that. Not only am I satisfied sending e-mails to groups of contacts when I feel the need to share, more importantly, I just don't have the time for Twitter.
I've got to run now. It's time for lunch. Tuna on whole wheat. Yum!
Biography
Elinor Mills is a senior writer at CNET News.com, covering search and online advertising. She has been writing about technology for 13 years, loves TiVo but hates TV and still has issues with her cell phone.
See more CNET content tagged:
Twitter, thought, IM
Talk about over-thinking...
Gotta agree about Tivo, it's the best thing!
How narcissitic must these people be to think that anyone, including their friends, want to hear their every waking thought?
Not to mention the tremendous amount of time these people waste WRITING about life, when they should be LIVING it.
For heaven's sake people, unplug every once in awhile!
Narcissism is the love of oneself, yet with Twitter, what you become engaged in is the life of others.
It's the water cooler for the age of working at home.
And it's more than just talking about yourself. It's like a mini-blog where you can point friends to things of interest.
The author writes, "Not only am I satisfied sending e-mails to groups of contacts when I feel the need to share, more importantly, I just don't have the time for Twitter."
If you have the time to send out an email you have the time for Twitter, but I actually think you really need a blog.
--Steve
Presently however, the 140 characters of a Twitter post seems suitable as communication from only one place, the 5hi!tt3r. When else would one really have the inclination to say absolutely nothing of substance except when presented no other option than to admire the floor's tile-work, ponder the intellectualism of scrawled wall-poetry, or gaze intently at another Andre the Giant sticker? With luck, perhaps the act of putting so much attention to communicating -about- what you're doing in contrast to what you are actually doing will get the just reward of being flushed away along with the rest of the turds.
Don't drop your phone. ;)
I used to barf on the Twitter idea too until I realized it's all about who you "listen" to.
Before I subscribe to anyone's feed I look at their last 8-12 posts. If they're using it to update me on their pets, menu selections and gripes with the world, I don't care how famous they are or who else subscribes, I just ain't gonna.
I use twitter to network (in a way), to learn about cool new things interesting to me and to stay motivated by "surrounding myself with successful people". It's the oldest career advice in the book, it just happens a different way now.
By the way, how did I come to read your article? Steve Garfield twittered the link. Hmm.
PS - Twitter also has some very fun user-developed "applications" like /darthvader, /stevenwright, /twitterlit and http://www.twitter.com/twitterflix (my own stream of movie quotes)
Still, Neil Postman was more prophetic than he realized in "Technopoly" (Vintage Books 1992) when he stated, "Information has become a form of garbage." Twitter seems to be adding more to the heap, just in smaller amounts.
I use twitter as an Attention tool. I say "I'm listening to Buzz Out Loud" with a link. I say, "Do you think Download Squad are being silly?" with a link. So, I use it to point awareness.
Further, I have found it gives me that nifty gate-jumper access to people that blogs USED to give you back in the day.
Oh, and I don't have to log in, sign up, and jump over things to comment on a twitter.
www.radiowalker.com
Great read!!
Michael
There is NOTHING at all about Twitter that is technologically an advance or new. It is truly one of the biggest pieces of crap that has come out of Silicon Valley/San Francisco recently, only surpassed in how passe it's technology is and how useless it's overall functions are by 2ndlife.
The only reason that you hear Twitter being Hyped by Big media, is the same reason you hear
2ndlife being Hyped by Big media, which is bunch of Silicon Valley VCs and VC connected have
investments in them. If these guys were not in Silicon valley to San Francisco area and had not received VC funding you would never hear about them. Which should make you think how many great
products you do not hear about because they are not in the Internet cartel, which is Silicon valley to San Francisco area AND having received VC funding!
I also have issues with cell phones and am still holding out and not owning one.
Here's how.
1.) People who would normally work isolated, can interact with people all over the globe to get answers to questions, meaningful or trivial.
2.) Twitter provides direct "eye-witness" accounts from independent observers at the same event, occurring in near real-time.
3.) Twitter allows the development of light social bonds to form amongst people from a variety of backgrounds, cultures, geographies etc. It is the social gravity of the web. A weak but important force in this era of "bowling alone".
4.) Finally, we don't know what we don't know about the reverberations yet to emanate from Twitter and other "social network" sites. I for one will bet on the unknown and ascribe to H.L. Mencken's quote - "Penetrating so many secrets we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless calmly licking its chops."
Britney's on the way to another rehab (no ****)
Do you really care..
that joe schmoe is on the way to gym and is late because he can't decide whether to have a protein shake or oatmeal for breakfast?
or billy bob is mowing the lawn?
or peggy sue can't find her favorite dress?
...is having pizza..
... is playing miniature golf..
...is watching a movie..
Seriously... does anyone give a flying f*$% what "you" were doing last sat at 9:23 pm?
Personally, I'm starting a "cleansing program"..
and I wondering if I should sign on to *sh*itter.com every time I'm runnin to the head, throne, toilet..
"i'll keep you posted"!
- by geakz November 13, 2008 4:48 PM PST
- I guess I'm coming a bit late to the party. I Googled "anti twitter" and here I am. I divorced my Twitter account a few nights ago. I was reaching my 1,000th tweet. There were only a dozen people I followed. But I began having flashbacks to my early Internet days when I had an AOL account. I spent countless hours in chat rooms then, and enjoyed it. There are many who use Twitter for the same reason today. It frustrating when people you follow are spewing their twits to @others who you don't follow. So now there is this huge one-sided conversation, like listening to someone talk on their phone. Lord knows we have enough of that in our lives. Now we have to live it in text?
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (36 Comments)Great article that hits the nail on the head and is still relevant today (11/13/08).