As you can probably tell I have become incessantly involved with Twitter and some would maybe say too addicted. Although it probably is true, it’s not the topic of conversation today. After hitting my 1000th tweet (thank you, thank you…) I reflected on what I had posted throughout the time that I’ve been on Twitter. Sure there were times when I had posted garbage that got reaction but there were also times when I had something meaningful to say and I got nothing in response.
This can go back to how our generation reacts to news. We tend to create a storm with sensational stories whilst the real hard-hitting news tends to get buried. Now don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t happen all the time but more often than not we talk more about Kim Kardashian or Justin Bieber than we do about the crisis in the Middle East. I also tend to get wrapped up in it, as do most people; although I can safely say those two aforementioned celebrities consume a grand total of zero minutes out of my day.
The real gripe I have though is how way too many people decide to use social media. In many cases, the original focus of the sites has gotten lost in translation and has now turned into a poster boy for one of the things that’s wrong with our society. Facebook is a clear example of this and Twitter is now well on its way as it continues to grow in leaps and bounds. I recently went over my cousins tweets and I have seen this case time and time again on Facebook. Most of what it contains is a mishmash of mindless jibber jabber. A small collection of her tweets includes: “I’mmm hungrryy”, “What an idiot”, “I can’t concentrate omfg” “seriously”. Now imagine 8,088 of these. These tweets aren’t responses to someone else, they’re just sent out randomly with no ‘sense of place’ (just trying to bring in my urban planning background).
When I see this I wonder what provokes someone to randomly go on Twitter and post something like this and I ask, what’s the point? What do you gain from this? In reality I’m not sure how much you can possibly gain from this and it boils down to people just finding other ways to waste their time in a more public setting.
Now I know there are no rules on Twitter and I’m not suggesting there should be but Twitter was designed to reinforce the power of place. To illustrate this I’ll tell you a story about Twitter’s beginnings.
‘The creators of Twitter were at a conference in Austin, TX attending a seminar when all of a sudden groups of people just got up and left the room. Now it wasn’t because the seminar had ended and nobody announced anything because the PA system was non-existent. What the creators soon realized is that people were using their cellphones and laptops to access Twitter and communicate with people that there was an interesting lecture down the hall. The people in the lecture didn’t know the people attending the seminar but they had a common link. All of them were attending the local conference. Twitter was the only technology in existence at that time, which allowed people to act as one. The next day, the creators incorporated Twitter, giving rise to Twitter Inc.’
Twitter has the ability to bring random people together whether it be over a common movement such as #KONY2012 (Research the organization before you promote it as I made the mistake of believing every word the organization spewed out), or a common place such as promoting a local festival. Sadly, more and more people are using it for all the wrong reasons, which are reinforcing the stereotypes of our generation. Let’s start using Twitter and other social media platforms in a more constructive way supporting ideas and thoughts that we believe in.
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