What’s the Point of Twitter?
Diane asked this question, in essence, in the comments to a recent post. Here’s a particularly heartfelt explanation of the value, to some of us, of following the “status updates” of Twitter and Facebook friends.
“As a user of Twitter and Facebook status updates, I can tell you that they have come to matter to me in a way that I find surprising. Seeing a list of what all my friends, family, and acquaintances are up to helps me to feel connected to them. This is not just silly “Joe Blow is at the mall shopping for an iPhone” trivia either, though that is a crucial element of social currency. Important information can be conveyed, too. It was through a status update that I learned of an old friend’s work in freeing slaves in Calcutta, for example.”
Read the rest here. And here is the whale essay Brad mentions, which is worth a full read for its own sake.
Thanks for the explanation. That does help make sense of it.
The whale essay was superb. Even here in southern MD, those types of gas stations are rare. As mentioned, they all have food connected to them now. Hmm…..another reason why Americans keep getting fatter? You know, fill up the car, fill up the stomach, hungry or not?
Well, when you consider what KINDS of food are available, and that they are intended to be stuffed into your face while you race to your next errand, etc., you may be on to something.
To elaborate on the “what’s the point of Twitter,” etc., discussion, I would add that, given how much so many of us move around these days, it is a way to keep up casual aquaintanceships that would otherwise fall away after one has moved. I “follow” lots of people it would never occur to me to exchange lengthy correspondence with. It’s interesting that this means I often don’t know the larger things that are going on in their lives, but I can lend a hand with a small problem if they post about it. (E.g., “So and so is researching places to visit in Puerto Rico.”)
Maybe it’s an antidote for the disconnected lives so many of us lead.
I could also add that my main reason for reactivating Twitter is not because it seems incredibly useful to me in itself, but because there is a way to use your phone via Twitter to update your Facebook status message, meaning I can post something real time such as the accomplishment of climbing Missoula’s Mt. Jumbo yesterday. Now, as to WHY I want to be able to do that, I don’t really know… There is a kind of excitement to me about user-generated content on the web (blogs, etc.) and the way these change the way we live and what we know about the world. I guess I just enjoy feeling like part of that in some small way.
I wondered how you made that post on Mt. Jumbo. The only way I could think of was if you had your laptop with you, but I didn’t think it would work way up there and why would you want to carry a laptop along on a hike. Esp. considering your laptop is like your job and you were probably hiking to get away from your job for a while. Well, mystery solved.
I agree it’s nice to keep up with people I never would email on a regular basis like Angelique that I care about, but don’t really keep in touch with.