On Twitter (was Re: [LINK] Microsoft Live Mesh)

[Craig Sanders]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 10:01:26AM +1000, Stilgherrian wrote:

> The VAST majority of human communication is what you'd call "trivial
> thoughts" -- the constant stream of social bonding that holds any
> group together. It's MEANT to be ephemeral, since it's about the now.
> [...]
> All Twitter does is put that constant chatter onto the interwebs, so it can
> happen at a distance.

then it should REMAIN ephemeral.

if twittering was purely private between groups of friends or
acquaintances, i wouldn't mind it at all...but with twitter<->blog
gateways, it tends to infest rss feeds so that what might have made
sense or been appropriate as an off-the-cuff comment or in-joke between
friends gets published to everyone who subscribes to any of the feed
aggregators (e.g. the various "planet" rss feeeds, or other aggregation
services).


twitter: 10:30 going to toilet now
twitter: 10:45 wow, that took longer than expected!
twitter: 10:46 cool, it's almost 11am.
twitter: 10:49 sometimes i wish i was a butterfly
twitter: 10:51 no, a bird would be better
twitter: 10:52 i wonder if birds ever think about that.
twitter: 10:53 yay.  lunchtime in a little more than an hour.
twitter: 10:53 need to kill time until then.

and so on. ad nauseum.


silence is golden.
twitter is excremental.


> I must admit, all I'm detecting here is "old man syndrome": that the
> new tool to do this task is "bad", 'cos there's on "old" tool which
> you may use for this task. Or is that off the mark?

way off the mark.

my objection isn't about the technology in use.  it's about the constant
stream of inane chatter and drivel.  i have the same loathing of
breakfast radio, (especially commercial radio) for example.


i know i'm very much in the minority for liking silence, but i really
just wish people would learn to shut up once in a while, even if only
for a minute or two.  

they might have time to actually think if only they'd just shut up.


> I don't mean that particularly personally. I had much the same
> reaction to Twitter until I actually used it to sty in touch with some
> of my friends and colleagues. Some of them, as you'll see from the
> comments on my blog post, still have that belief.

when used privately, it's probably no better or worse than any other IM
type system.


> > learning to think before forming an opinion would be a good idea
> > too. but that's probably way too much to hope for, i'll settle for
> > people learning how to shut up.
>
> Opinion-forming is a group activity.

unfortunately, that is true for the bulk of the population.  no thought
required, just conformity.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>