Many of you know that, in addition to my duties as scientist and blogger, I have recently started a Twitter account. This allows me to share with the world all of the deep insights, amusing trifles, and enlightening links that are just too short to fit into a blog post.
It has not escaped my attention that the world is filled with grumpy old people (of all ages) who take great joy in mocking the mode of superficial sound-bite communication that Twitter embodies. Usually this mockery is broadcast by means of their blogs or Facebook accounts, which … well, I’ll let you finish the thought. (Some of it will be broadcast, I hereby predict, in the comment section attached to this post.)
So I was going to let it pass when our wonderful new bloggy neighbor Sheril took the time to explain in great detail why she disapproves of Twitter. Different strokes, and all that. But then she went a step too far: she linked to a column by Maureen Dowd, and described it as “terrific.” Oh Sheril, how could you?
Here are some excerpts from Ms. Dowd’s foray into honest reportage — the probing queries she asked during her interview with the founders of Twitter.
I was here on a simple quest: curious to know if the inventors of Twitter were as annoying as their invention.
ME: Did you know you were designing a toy for bored celebrities and high-school girls?
ME: If you were out with a girl and she started twittering about it in the middle, would that be a deal-breaker or a turn-on?
ME: Do you ever think “I don’t care that my friend is having a hamburger?”
ME: Why did you think the answer to e-mail was a new kind of e-mail?
ME: Why did you call the company Twitter instead of Clutter?
ME: Was there anything in your childhood that led you to want to destroy civilization as we know it?
I guess these are the kinds of questions they’re teaching people to ask in Serious Journalism school these days. (The answers were a lot more polite than I would have been.)
The anti-Twitter crowd always hastens to explain that they are not, really, grumpy old Luddite curmudgeons. The reason why it’s necessary to make this point is, of course, because they are all grumpy old Luddite curmudgeons. And here’s how we know: a little-appreciated feature of the Twitter technology is that it’s completely optional! You don’t have to get involved. It’s okay, really. Nobody is forcing you. Now, when there is something new going around that nobody is forcing you to be involved with, there are a couple of possible non-curmudgeonly responses. One is: ignore it completely. Nothing wrong with that. Another is: give it a try, decide whether or not you like it; if so, your happiness has been marginally improved, and if not, leave and get on with your life. Simple!
And then there is one quintessentially curmudgeonly response: don’t try it, but take valuable time out of your day explaining to other people why they shouldn’t be enjoying it, either. The only difference between that and yelling “Get off my lawn!” is — well, there isn’t any difference, really.
For me, Twitter is mildly amusing for three minutes a day. Could take it or leave it, really. But it’s nice to get science links from the Telegraph, updates on Penn State’s spring practice from Jay Paterno, Senate gossip from Claire McCaskill, peeks at the Iron Man II set from Jon Favreau, breathless scoops from Roland Hedley, or reassurances of continued insanity from John McCain. I find it interesting, but that’s me. Again: completely optional!
The biggest substantive complaint is that we have become a society of over-sharers, and one simply doesn’t want to be continually updated about what people had for dinner. Again: fine! Just don’t subscribe to Newt Gingrich’s feed. But the claim that Twitter is nothing but mindless inanities is just as wrong as the analogous claim for blogs — in fact it’s precisely the same claim, five years later. There are other things you can do with the technology — the technical terms are “lifecasting” [here’s what I had for dinner] vs. “mindcasting” [here’s a thought, a question, an observation, a link to something more substantial]. And if someone else really does want to know what their friends are having for dinner, why should you be so bothered?
Twitter is not very important, on the cosmic scale of things. It’s just a fun little gadget. But it’s a small part of something very important: a changing information landscape that enables new kinds of communication. (That link via David Harris’s Twitter feed.) Nobody has any idea what that landscape is going to look like twenty years from now, but it’s interesting to watch it evolve. Not that anyone is forcing you to do so.
Just wondering if my memory serves me right, but was any other internet technology so controversial when it came out in the love it or hate it mindset? Because I can’t remember something similar for, say, Facebook, but that might have been because Facebook was exclusively a college student thing for such a long time before others caught onto it.
Myself, I’ve been traveling for three months so I haven’t had a phone or constant internet ever since Twitter became chic. I would confess it’s been nice but then I’d have to turn in my geek card. 😉
Dear Sean,
Please try not to take flamewars and childish bickering away from the internet, it wouldn’t exist without them!
I haven’t tried Twitter, and your points are all valid of course, but from a comp.sci point of view it is a huge security risk. I have friends in security who use it, so my points are not exactly non-debatable either, but I’m fairly certain that for younger generations of computer users, an idea of something like Twitter every day leads to very silly things happening in the majority of cases. Facebook is a far better option security wise, and people STILL fall for automated bots and get their ‘private’ data (like pictures, locations..etc) harvested freely. A friend did this for a security project last semester. It was shocking. I guess an educated user base is a solution for everything, but ‘educated’ doesn’t really mean much these days.
Also, I would far recommend younger people read than write useless things. I am 24, and if I had spent all my days as a 12 year doing stuff online as I do now, I would not know enough to even consider looking at your blog here. Strange, innit? But teenagers’ lives are none of my business, it’s their parents and schools that need to tell them these things. We can still debate it though. It’s just a noble effort to tell them to read (any material, including horror books). Hopefully that’s not too harsh of a suggestion.
I find that people who have read a lot at any point in their lives tend to put better things online.
-A
Wonderfully succinct; Thanks Sean.
I think that Twitter is a fairly useful technology that seems to be way over-used by the average person. My biggest complaint is that its most frequent use seems to drown out the uses I find most compelling.
Sure, for celebrities, bloggers with big followings, and other public personalities, it kinda makes sense to life cast or mind cast. That’s part of their (your) game.
But for the average person, Twitter seems like a pretty useful thing to have in order keep a circle of friends very cohesive. You could post informal plans “Going out for a beer at 7; wanna join?” or reminders for a movie date “7pm at theater 15 at Cinemark tonight”. But almost nobody seems to reserve it for that utilitarian use. Invariably, life casting slips in, at least in my experience. You get mundane updates of your friends’ lives that they usually wouldn’t even bother to share in person.
That the aspects of Twitter that appeal to me seem to be drown out by the background noise is a real pity. I would follow more friends of mine if doing so didn’t require sifting out the things I really don’t care about. Because of this, I stopped using it. If Twitter allowed you to post to different “channels” or something, I could see re-adopting it. Like, I want to subscribe to my friends’ “meeting” channel or whatever. I’d like to skip the other stuff. Is this possible with Twitter already? Did I give up on it before I gave it a fair shake?
“Good time-related quotes being sought. “The future’s not ours to see.” — Doris Day”.
If you’re still looking, how about “Dessa dagar som kom och gick, inte visste jag
att det var livet.” Author is Stig Johansson, described on the web page
http://www.livet.se/ord/k%C3%A4lla/Stig_Johansson as an “aphoristicist”. Now
that’s a nice job. A translation is “All these days which came and went, I didn’t know
that that was life.” As a Twitter motto, how about the classic self-referential quote from
Stephen Jay Gould: “No one-liner is ever optimal.”
Twitter effects non-users when great bloggers start twittering and stop writing informative, interesting posts like they used to.
Of course, it is possible that they’d quit without twitter, but those who haven’t quit, merely dropped from three days a week to once every three weeks are probably twtting instead of writing.
Some examples include:
http://scienceblogs.com/highlyallochthonous/
http://scienceblogs.com/greengabbro/
and
http://highway8a.blogspot.com/
Who actually fesses up here:
http://highway8a.blogspot.com/2009/04/this-site-worth-variable-amounts.html
What about ones own thoughts – How can you have them if you are constantly interrupted – Steady stream of what ? It is difficult for me to clear my mind – stop the chatter – decide between thousands of possibilities – All the Foofaraw …… getting used to quiet. …. and finally: Ideas – ways of looking at things I never planned on all on my own.
However
If you want to feel connected and important – and that gives you the energy you need to do your work you are in luck – instantly ! Twitter.
c’mon, drink the twitter kool-aid…
🙂
Personally, I see no reason to Twitter. I have a FB account mostly to share photos and news with family and a few friends, but I ignore the ‘applications’ there. I have no objections to others using Twitter, but then, I have no objections to them jumping of cliffs or drinking themselves to death. It’s a free country.
I think most grumpy old Luddite curmudgeons feel the users of making more of less…pretty soon they will be ‘friends’ with everyone but not really know anyone. All relationships will be virtual (sounds like the subject of a thesis for a psych PHD, doesn’t it?)
BTW: My blog is entitled Get Off My Lawn
LOL
Yet another instance of the following:
1. Some people do X, where X is something that is easily avoided if you want to.
2. Some other people complain about people doing X. These complaints are easily avoided if you want to.
3. Some people (often a subset of those who do X) complain about people complaining about people who do X, on the grounds that X is easily avoided if you want to, though they usually fail to mention that the complaints they’re complaining about are easily avoided if you want to. These complaints are also easily avoided if you want to.
4. You get the idea.
This phenomenon needs a nice, pithy name.
@James…
“Circular Whining”?
Just what the world needs – a plague of self absorbed inane text snippets, polluting the radio spectrum.
The column by Maureen Down is really terrific. You would think it is dumbed down intentionally to demonstrate how the soundbite format makes communication superficial. This would be a brilliant way to make the point, unless you are familiar with all the other columns Dowd write over her long career…
Sean,
I am a Twit now. In some ways, wish I hadn’t bothered being a Twit, but the people/followers seem ok tho. Can’t see my self dropping it now, for fear or offending what followers I have (haven’t yet got round to talking to anyone on show, just direct msgs to and fro).
You know that Campbell’s Condensed Soup, Twitter is like that – but without the soup.
Claire
@mk: That’s pretty good. I also like James’s Law. 🙂 I guess we’d have to make it into a law first.
How about “onewhinesmanship”?
@James
Last I checked, when someone posted something on the internet, they are inviting a reply.
Oh, just a reminder that Twitter isn’t always about “What I had for dinner”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8018017.stm
ChrisG: I’m not judging. I just want a nice name for it.
@ James…
Ah, “onewhinesmanship” I think is better! Go with it.
And thanks to ChrisG for playing along! ;^}
“But the claim that Twitter is nothing but mindless inanities is just as wrong as the analogous claim for blogs — in fact it’s precisely the same claim, five years later. ”
And – just as with blogs – it is false to say that Twitter is NOTHING BUT mindless inanities.
However – just as with blogs – it is MOSTLY mindless inanities.
The real problem with twitter is that it’s a centralized service controlled by a single company. It’s sort of like what AOL mail or Compuserve mail were back before they joined the real internet. Twitter is a walled garden and a single point of failure.
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