Recently, there has been a huge media coverage of the website Twitter. It really seems to have caught on recently, and the number of people using it has increased exponentially from previous years (a bit like Facebook's earlier years.)
For those of you who haven't heard of Twitter, essentially it is a website where people post short little messages of 140 characters or less of what they are doing at that moment. Messages on Twitter, or "tweets" as they call them, can be as mundane as "This taco is delicious" or very important, as Twitter was used during the California wildfires to keep firefighters updated. Basically, it's like the status message on Facebook, where you let the rest of the world know what you're thinking.
But isn't this a bit alarming? Has our attention span become so tiny that we are captivated by these short, typically frivolous, messages? Although there are many valuable messages posted on Twitter (such as from Obama and other celebrities), the majority of "tweets" there are from regular people like us who enjoy broadcasting their every little thought to the rest of the world. Isn't that a bit narcissist?
Or perhaps this is just the way things are in the 21st century. After all, social networking has already revolutionized old media. Maybe Twitter will do the same.
-Eric W
4 comments:
I personally feel as if "Twitter" is simply another fad that may eventually pass. Remember when Myspace was the whole new fad? Right, and then it was criticized as a hub for child predators, nutjobs, etc. And now Twitter is attempting to push aside Facebook as the new fad. However, it may be difficult to judge currently whether or not Twitter is here to stay. Facebook seems to be a fairly "stable" fad at the moment, yet it has been criticized for allowing access to younger and older generations. Some complain that Twitter is pointless because it is nothing but the "status update" function on Facebook, while others have embraced it, leading others (especially celebrities) to do so as well. We'll probably have to wait a few months or years or so before we can determine whether these networks are truly the newest innovations or just foolish fads.
To answer your question, Eric, I agree that our attention spans have shrunk to the point that we share each and every one of our thoughts with the world through Twitter/Facebook/etc. I wouldn't necessarily say that this is a result of narcissism, though. We merely find pleasure in writing such frivolous updates or messages so that people may comment on them or reply to them. They may spark conversation or they may be ridiculed or compared, but they aren't necessarily narcissistic. We might not love ourselves, but we definitely love the internet.
(Janet Lee)
Twitter seems to serve the speed of our generation, wanting things now, not later, and wanting them quickly, not slowly. It allows us to keep people up-to-date with what is going on on a minutely basis, if we feel like it. I don't understand its purpose, in general, or why people would spend time on it, but that's my opinion.
As with many technological devices, Twitter certainly serves its positive purposes, as well. My brother is on a bike trip right now, travelling from Canada to San Diego. He updates his blog at public libraries when he has the opportunity, but this is a rare occasion. When he can't update his blog, he assures everyone that he is still alive and well be updating his Twitter account. I see the value of this because he is able to let all of his friends and family know he's okay without having to make hundreds of calls.
But for those of us that don't go on thousand mile bike trips, what is the purpose of Twitter, besides simply telling people what we're doing (which seems to me to be quite a trivial and almost meaningless reason)?
Emily T.
Hooray! People are still posting on the blog!
@:)
Yay for the blog!
By the way, do you guys remember that story that Mr. Lazarow told us about MySpace? It had to do with the pedophile/rape reports coming out at a strategic time. I can't quite recall the details... Some reminder would be appreciated.
I wouldn't blame the Twitter phenomenon just on our attention spans. Have you noticed that a lot of the provocative quotes out there are short and sweet? They're seemingly simple statement which turn out to be more profound than we'd thought. (For some reason, To be or not to be jumps to mind!) But you guys get my point, right?
In these times, we want to keep tabs on people/places/events without expending too much energy. With the use of our little computers, we save tons of information daily. Like Eric said, we can post "tweets" about our taco-eating habits. But who wants to read two pages about taco-eating? I'd love to know that you're eating a taco, but any further detail is unnecessary. The ideal alternative would be Emily's brother's usage of Twitter, both efficient and beneficial.
People have got a lot to say. I wouldn't link the 140 character limit to laziness. Rather, I'm sure the site has regulated the size of the tweets because people would most likely write pages philosophizing through their statuses. No one wants to log on and find multiple pages to read. The concise nature of the messages have led to the success of the site.
(Sam Maliha)
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