I'm in a critical mood, so I'm going to voice my opinion about this new social network site Twitter.
I first heard about Twitter from Prof Smith when him and Sandholtz were debriefing after the screening of the presidential debates on campus....apparently it was a big hit during Obama's campaign. Anyway, I feel like the site's popularity just exploded within the past month so I decided to check it out. Normally I give social network sites two thumbs up just because of the idea that they are based upon - making connections with people in the virtual world, where connections with people in the real world are getting harder and harder to make.
But Twitter takes that idea of connection and turns it into borderline STALKING! It's not like you're offered a space for any real identity making. You can provide the standard information: name, age, location, etc but that's it. Basically, it's like updating your facebook status 5 THOUSAND times a day so your "followers" can know that you're eating a ham and cheese sandwich....changing your socks....watching your neighbor jack off. It's funny that the Patriot Act created an outrage from everyone who whined about invasion of privacy, yet we seem to be obsessed with wanting to know anything and everything about everyone else.
I feel like we're entering an age where community based action is getting sucked away by the internet vacuum...and the challenge will be how to balance our constant 'virtual' presence within and outside the computer. Does this make sense? At least sites like Myspace and Facebook still have some form of community building through groups, events, etc. All Twitter does is give me useless spurts of information about you that I wouldn't care to know anyway. If you wanna know what I'm doing right now, CALL/IM ME and we'll have a chat..
COMMENT! I'd like to hear your opinion.
4 comments:
I concur, friend. I'd heard about Twitter since beginning of Fall Quarter but didn't care to check it out until I read your post. I didn't need to browse through the site much to formulate that it is another huge waste of time and just one step below straight up stalker status. It's kind of sad that people so feel the need to connect [in the sense of socializing] with others to the point where they document their every move in hopes that someone would read it and care. There's already enough of this in the form of FB and AIM status updates. I don't know what to call it but it's definitely NOT communication. If you really want to 'connect' with your friends, CALL THEM UP AND HANG OUT WITH THEM.
I actually signed up for Twitter around the time of Obama's campaign, and thought it was really interesting. I honestly never really got that into it, and stopped using it. Although, I have noticed people have started "following" me like crazy on it lately. I heard someone did a study on Twitter as a social network. Ultimately, he discussed the purpose of it as an online social network being different from ones like Facebook. Facebook is an online social network where it is meant for friends to virtually connect and keep in touch. According to this one professor, Twitter is an online social network to not only connect with your friends, but people you don't know as well. Since Twitter is mostly based on "statuses," or simple statements about peoples' lives, it's more about seeing a glimpse of different perspectives from across the world.
i think i'm going to sign up for twitter out of curiosity now.
and please read my entries and not just click "spop staff" and ignore the rest. hahaha
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