Twitter is a child in the street screaming at the top of his lungs for more ice cream.
They are not wrong. Twitter is arguably the worst thing for any society, regardless of political, economic, or cultural background.
Elgan's argument is that Twitter is free from criticism because it is simply a medium and not responsible for the knuckle-heads who use it. I strongly disagree. I believe, in the way Jerry Mander thinks that the television set is inherently evil and working against human beings, Twitter is–by the nature of it's programming–destructive to normal society.
On most other occasions, I strongly endorse personal responsibility. People shouldn't tweet about the minutiae of their lives every half-hour. But they do and it is then the rest of society's responsibility to not follow or listen to them. But this doesn't matter because even if we don't listen, people are still tweeting about the random crap in their pathetic lives.
Elgan quotes an article from the UK's Times Online which claims that tweeting "stems from a lack of identity"–in other words, tweeting=insecurity. Elgan responds by bringing attention to the fact that the Times Online article was only talking about a small subset of Twitter users. He claims that Twitter is not self-indulgent, narcissistic, or shallow but rather only this small demographic (young people) is.
Mike Egan says that in order to bypass the insecure and shallow on Twitter, simply do not follow them. But that does not stop them from being shallow and insecure. Twitter is a vessel for the insecure. On what planet can you have a worthwhile discourse with someone when you can only use 140 characters? The dictionary on my computer defines Twitter as "a series of short, high-pitched calls or sounds" and "idle or ignorant talk". Is this really what we've been obsessing over? Is this what has taken the world by storm? Idle or ignorant talk? What has become of us?
But even if you do choose to not follow them, the insecurity remains. Twitter isn't like a text message (which are generally much smaller than 140 characters) to one person, rather it is an announcement to the world. Regardless of the merit of the tweet (which for the most part is nonexistent), it is intrinsically insecure to make announcements to the world on such a frequent basis.
Moreover, it is quite narcissistic to think that all is dandy when you simply look the other way. Twitter is equipping individuals to be insecure, shallow, and narcissistic regardless of whether or not you follow them. The problem doesn't just go away when you choose not to listen. The problem is Twitter, not these people. Before Twitter, insecure and narcissistic people did not have a portal to illustrate their insecurity and narcissism, especially on a global scale. Elgan akins annoying Twitter users to annoying telephone callers–you don't get mad at the telephone when you get the call. But there is a huge difference between Twitter and a telephone.
First off, people do not use the telephone as much as they use Twitter. Individuals tweet 10-15 times a day. I might make 10-15 telephone calls in a week. When I call someone I am making a connection to one specific individual or location. When I tweet, I am offering an announcement to whoever is listening at a global scale. I can also have an intelligent conversation with someone on a telephone while on Twitter I have to wrack my brain to think of how to fit 200 characters into 140.
Now this all is not to say that every Twitter user is an egotistical self-indulgent narcissist. All I'm trying to get at is that Twitter facilitates this kind of behavior. In fact, this is really what it does best.
The sheer volume of tweets makes them all inconsequential. White noise eventually becomes a silence in itself. True, you can choose to follow whomever you wish but the fact remains–twitterers tweet a lot and mainly about nothing. Twitter is useless as a social tool. Human beings do not and should not communicate 140 characters at a time.
So besides casual chit-chat, Twitter is also being used as a marketing tool. I can't stress enough how ineffective it is. Businesses tweet to inform consumers about new deals and products and they generally get yelled at for spamming ads.
The last thing that Elgan mentions that I completely abhor is the idea that Twitter can be a breaking news resource. This idea goes back to my last blog about blogger responsibility.
No. Twitter can not and should not be used as a breaking news resource. Absolutely not. Let me explain.
I do realize that there are reputable publications that have Twitter accounts and that their news updates can be useful. But Twitter is a dangerous tool for news and editorial content because everyone is now a journalist/reporter. Early this year, a plane crashed in the Hudson River in New York and a man named Janis Krums not only witnessed it but took a photo and uploaded it to his Twitter account. He was the first "journalist" on scene and he was the first person to cover the story. It was an incredible day for everyone–all the passengers were saved, the world received first-hand information from a completely unbaised source, and Janis Krums was made a celebrity who appeared on MSNBC, Good Morning, America, and other TV shows.
But not everyone can be a journalist but everyone can be a Twitterer. There is training, education, ethics, practices, that must be mastered before you can start reporting. You have to get the story right before you send it out. There must be fact-checkers and editors. But now, everyone is a reporter and the information that is spread can be misunderstood, skewed, or just flat out wrong. And with the volume of tweets that pour in, no one can be sure about who is correct.
I suggest reading Jerry Mander's Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. Whether you decide to throw your TV out the window or not, this book makes a good argument about technology in general. It is widely accepted that technology is "neutral" and that it can only be used for unscrupulous purposes when placed in the wrong hands. Mander's book argues that this is not so and I believe that Twitter is another example of how technology isn't benign but that they work against us even when we aren't using them.
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