Jacqueline's Blog

(A.S: written initially for my English class. The text can be read individually, but it’s even more spicy read after the great article of Bill Keller, from New York Times. Enjoy! )

The Twitter Trap

I must declare, before starting my essay, that when reckoning about which is going to be the main topic of my three pages work, my too infatuated with itself brain automatically started to process ideas like” have men really reached the moon?” or „I shall militate for the poor workers in Dubai!” It even went on a short lived mental expedition into the depths of the ocean life only to come back with… well the topic in process.

My work was going to bring up new, revolutionary ideas and was, for sure, going to get me the satisfaction of having pressed on a topic of a extreme importance to the world we live in.

And yet, I find myself writing about Twitter.

Have I fallen into the trap then?

Let’s debate, shall we?

In the name of the adaptation to the modern world (and being cool on the side) I have signed into Twitter about a year ago. I was mildly prejudiced against it then: a platform where everybody can write what they eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And other sort of things that no one cares about, but some people scream out to the world, just to feel listened. Ah, the wonders of Web 2.0!

Needless to say that me and my prejudices didn’t get along well with Twitter, and our online periods were limited. Sign in, check what your friends – as disinterested as you – have to say, sign out, move on.

But recently, after getting in touch with the professionals from the online environment, I found myself being a participant in a training on social media platforms. The outcome? Coming to realize God puts wonders in front of you, but you are the one who was to learn how to take the best out of them.

One of the trainers said the following :” On Facebook we are friends with people we went to school with. On Twitter we follow people we wanted (desperately so) to go to school with.”As some of the Bill Keller Twitter followers answered to him :”It depends on who you follow.”

 Actually, it makes all the difference.

When used correctly Twitter can get you on a correct professional path. Those who use Twitter wisely follow mainly experts on their field area. People that have no interest (except in their extravagant days) to share the events of their last night out, but precious information about their domain. People that have an authority – or are building one – and tell you what information helped them get there. People that always know the latest news and sort out the most precious.

And you, as a very interested individual, thirsting for new things to learn can follow people that know all about your work field, people that share your passions, people that bring you first the latest news.

Institutions also have twitter accounts. Events too. Every little thing that happens, in every moment, Twitter knows it.

It’s up to you to discover the right people to follow.

Now, the second problem it’s about the “connectedness”, as Bill Keller puts it. But let’s get one thing clear at first: Twitter was not designed to get you more friends, help you meet your soulmate or drastically extend your number of acquaintances. You want to reach some people then, for sure, you have to say something pertinent too.

For example, the Communication department from NGO I’m volunteering came up with a simple, but (hopefully) effective Twitter Strategy. Follow the right people in the domain, retweet them, find similar information to share with them, and then invite them to our events under the umbrella of “same interests”. It helps when you’re the largest international NGO run by students, but does it work for the simple people too?

“The harder your work, the luckier you get,” they say. For one individual to attract the attention of an expert in his area of work, to “network” efficiently it is a vast work. That individual should learn to browse the web wisely, make sure he has a reasonable number of followers, make his tweets decent and insist diplomatically. Basically, it requires some social skills that are as efficient in real life too: diplomacy, persuasion, hard work. To create the connection you want with “the right people”.

Engage people though? Not in the revolutionary meaning of it.

You engage people by announcing a contest (which was what got me so keen on Twitter in the first place, and submitting to every interesting contest announced in the past month), a big event or… bring them under the hashtag of a football game (needless to say, not one of my favorites). By launching an accusation, or approaching a controversial topic.

Either way here is where Bill Keller is truly and deeply right: 140 characters don’t allow you to speak up your mind, mainly teach you to summarize and think like a copywriter or SEO professional.

There is a belief when it comes to Twitter: “Google before you Tweet is the new think before you speak.” Therefore, to use Twitter wisely you have to learn to use the whole web wisely.

I do not agree with the fact that social media replaces our efforts to memorize things. But with the incredible afflux of information that “attacks” us daily, living without some sorting filter can get us mad or lost among the new things we face day after day. Let’s not forget that, before Guttenberg, information was stable and not changing dramatically from a day to the next one. In his time culture, technology were things essentially defined and, yet again, stable.

Today information is ever –changing and ever growing. So much that a recent study brings shocking results :” the information that an IT student receives in his first year College it is, in an aprox.  proportion of ¾,  out of date by his fourth.” I wonder if Mister Keller wants us to learn by heart all of this.

I’ll admit though that the feeling of dopamine rush is pretty powerful in a world where multi-tasking (although proven impossible in practice, because it’s nothing else but a fast swapping between activities – another recent study) is a condition to be employed. If one of your tabs in Chrome or Mozilla is labeled as Twitter and, in 10 minutes you see “ (5)” updates then you know, you just know you’re going to pause whatever you work on and check on them.

There’s the mystery that gets us every time. Because on Twitter you never know what the links shared are all about (thanks to the special site that shorten into 7 or 8 characters links that would otherwise fill more than 140 characters). Then you open them up in a new tab and you find yourself involved with whatever you’re reading about. The two minutes stretch into five, five into ten, and when you finally wake up half an hour has flew by.

This is the essential trap.

As about the context of our generation I believe Bill Keller actually refers to the space that social media puts between us – long miles that lack real human connection – and he is right. But we mustn’t put this blame on a platform that hasn’t promised connection of this sort. Facebook or Yahoo Messenger, these two wonders of modern technology might or might not encourage connection outside virtual world.

A virtual world that emotionally affects us indeed, leaving us with a craving for that essential human need called affection. A craving that distorts our natural behavior and has us filling the void with excesses like overdrinking or one night stands. But the former it’s just a personal concluson (I pride myself on being a pretty good observer on the society around me).

Since we have to “give to the Caesar what rightfully belongs to the Caesar” we must not ask from Twitter what Twitter hasn’t promised us. Yes, people can organize Tweetmeets ( following in the footsteps of blogmeets) and they can try to connect with the people that dearly wished they’d known from high-school, but the true advantage of this social platform is the access to a filtered information.

We make it a trap by misunderstanding its purpose. By cultivating our lazy instincts and producing another type of “Coke and couch potatoes” generation, just that our drug is now the online environment.

Of course I wrote all of this while checking my Twitter updates.