Twitter, this much I know
I was undoubtedly naive about Twitter in my early days with it. I was fortunate, I suppose, to stumble across interesting and gregarious Tweeters but my strength of faith in it dwindled with the roller coaster emotions I felt towards it. And finally with a helpful shove from real people, I jumped and my old, original twitter persona was no more. I started again. I did transport across some of my favourite tweeters, people I felt I’d built real contact with, without actually meeting them (I also forgot some as well, and now miss them, a little). This in itself proved to me a misnomer and, in a way that only I can, I managed to alienate a proportion of those too.
For me, social networks are not always social. This is a reflection of me, but it is also a mirror of the problems this type of networking can cause.
So what have I learned from Twitter?
People are Dull
Now if you haven’t stopped reading, this is not a negative. We’re all convinced everyone else had more interesting and exciting lives. Even though people put up masks to hide behind, it’s clear most people are just watching TV and worrying about the mortgage. How reassuring.
People think Twitter exists outside of normal life.
We all post random stuff from time to time which alienates and upsets. I have a tendency to do it to try and express my wishy washy liberal viewpoint. I hope its honesty rather than for effect that drives me to tweet it, but in the main we’ll all hoping we’ll get a retweet, a few more followers, a LOL. Otherwise why tweet? The original concept of twitter was as a micro-blog site, so you could let folks you know, know what you were doing. It’s out grown its humble origins, since most people are followed by people they don’t know. The standard response to criticism of tweeting what you want, when you want, is to “It’s my Twitter, people can unfollow”. Frankly thats just bollocks! If you wouldn’t walk into a crowded place and shout it out, or turn to face an individual and tell them they are wrong in the street, then you really shouldn’t do it on Twitter.
People lie
Given we all can hide behind abstract avatars and made up names and quite a few of us do, it’s no wonder people lie. It all feeds into points 1 and 2. I am dull, I want to be interesting therefore I need to lie.
Twitter is not populated by liberals
Early adopters of modern technologies tend to be more liberal in their outlook. A sweeping generalisation maybe, but liberal minded people tend also to be more open-minded and therefore more open to new experiences.In my early days on Twitter, when I swaggered around under a different name, it felt like we could save this or that and whilst we were at it change the world. Once something becomes popular and everyone and his wife takes part, things change. Loud shouting voices begin to overwhelm. bully and cajole, people disappear, something is lost forever.
However some people defy these Twitter conventions and although social networking can infuriate me there is a reason I don’t ditch it. Apart from the need to massage my ego by posting random musings to a wider audience or discovering interesting, stupid or news worthy things I’ve also found decent, funny and open people. People who have a genuine love of music or art or film, who share their passion, who don’t degenerate you for your choice of culture.
That in the end is what social networking should be.
Comments