Well, it’s tempting to say the short answer is: not quite.
As a professional tweeter, or twit, or whatever you call someone who has to spend part of their working day reading and writing the things, I regret to report that the bulk of the content I come across is rubbish: a complete waste of time, energy and space on my screen.
There are, of course, cases where the opposite is true. The most notable one that comes to mind was during the crackdown following the elections in Iran last year. Twitter became the protesters’ lifeline to the outside world, a way to tell us what was happening there, in real time, and just about the only way for them to communicate among themselves. The fact that this came about largely because the authorities neglected to shut down Twitter when they stamped on just about everything else (text messaging, Facebook, YouTube, the local BBC, etc.) doesn’t lessen the importance of Twitter’s contribution to free speech and democracy, it just means that next time, Twitter will be on every oppressive government’s radar, so whoever is being oppressed will have to use the next new big thing.
Closer to home, oil firm Trafigura attempted to prevent the Guardian and other media mentioning a report on the dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast last autumn. The gagging attempt collapsed overnight following a spontaneous Twitter campaign. Here, as in Iran, Twitter proved a useful tool, striking a real blow for freedom of speech.
Closer still, organisations like the one where I’m currently working use Twitter every day, in what I believe to be a useful way, to alert followers such as journalists to new press releases, or other organisations to new initiatives, or interested members of the public to campaigns. A nice example is a recent viral video campaign to recruit social workers #helpgivethemavoice, which we retweeted to extend its audience.
We also follow other people’s tweets (a similar mix of the media, other organisations and interested members of the public) so we can be alerted to any news, initiatives, campaigns, announcements, etc. that we may wish to be involved with, or need to respond to. It’s also a way of seeing what people out there are saying about us. Mostly, however, it turns out to be a way of seeing what people out there are saying about themselves.
And that's where the rubbish comes in. For every tweet saying useful, important or interesting things like:
RT @Directgov Home Office and Directgov/innovate launch Safer Streets beta! - discuss at http://bit.ly/169gFK
or
Govt buildings being smashed, police batoning protesters, tear gas, rocks...head wounds all around Tehran. #IranElections
there are dozens saying things like:
Getting bored at work. I think I'll have a cup of tea.
or
This cup of tea is really nice. I wish I had a biscuit.
Now there's an argument that phatics – statements whose only function is to perform a social task – play an important role in community development. I’m not sure how that’s meant to work, but I suppose it might be helpful, for example, to get to know a bit more about what some of our electronic correspondents are like as people. One way to do this might be to overhear some of their chatter about cups of tea along with any interesting or important things they may say.
And I know a certain amount of semantic redundancy is necessary in any kind of communication. If every utterance was completely meaningful, we’d presumably get mental indigestion.
But I can’t be the only person who thinks these tweeters are overdoing the redundancy. The majority of the tweets landing on my screen can only be interesting to an anthropologist unfortunate enough to be studying just how brain-numbingly dull people can be.
You might say that I've missed the point of Twitter, that it's meant to be mostly phatic, and that if I don't like eavesdropping on strangers' banalities I should just switch them off. Stop following them.
If only.
The trouble is, these tweeters are among those that my colleagues and I have chosen to follow. They are mostly media professionals who occasionally have something to say that we might need to know about.
To all tweeters out there, here’s an idea: imagine you're in a very big room with hundreds of people, with all of whom you have some connection or shared interest, but most of whom you barely know, if at all. Now you may want to whisper to your best friend, sitting beside you, that you're dying for a pee/bored stiff/feeling a bit rough/whatever; but you're probably not going to want to shout it to everyone in the room. Are you?
There is a solution. If you feel the need to immortalise your every thought and deed in 140-character broadcasts, why not have two Twitter IDs: one for your close friends (or whoever you imagine might be interested in your sub-haiku evaluations of last night’s soap opera or this morning's coffee) and another one for the rest of the world.
Otherwise, too many people are going to find that too much of your content isn’t worth spending the few seconds it takes to read it. They'll conclude, in other words, that it's a complete waste of time.
08 April 2010
Confessions of a professional twit
Well, it’s tempting to say the short answer is: not quite.
As a professional tweeter, or twit, or whatever you call someone who has to spend part of their working day reading and writing the things, I regret to report that the bulk of the content I come across is rubbish: a complete waste of time, energy and space on my screen.
There are, of course, cases where the opposite is true. The most notable one that comes to mind was during the crackdown following the elections in Iran last year. Twitter became the protesters’ lifeline to the outside world, a way to tell us what was happening there, in real time, and just about the only way for them to communicate among themselves. The fact that this came about largely because the authorities neglected to shut down Twitter when they stamped on just about everything else (text messaging, Facebook, YouTube, the local BBC, etc.) doesn’t lessen the importance of Twitter’s contribution to free speech and democracy, it just means that next time, Twitter will be on every oppressive government’s radar, so whoever is being oppressed will have to use the next new big thing.
Closer to home, oil firm Trafigura attempted to prevent the Guardian and other media mentioning a report on the dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast last autumn. The gagging attempt collapsed overnight following a spontaneous Twitter campaign. Here, as in Iran, Twitter proved a useful tool, striking a real blow for freedom of speech.
Closer still, organisations like the one where I’m currently working use Twitter every day, in what I believe to be a useful way, to alert followers such as journalists to new press releases, or other organisations to new initiatives, or interested members of the public to campaigns. A nice example is a recent viral video campaign to recruit social workers #helpgivethemavoice, which we retweeted to extend its audience.
We also follow other people’s tweets (a similar mix of the media, other organisations and interested members of the public) so we can be alerted to any news, initiatives, campaigns, announcements, etc. that we may wish to be involved with, or need to respond to. It’s also a way of seeing what people out there are saying about us. Mostly, however, it turns out to be a way of seeing what people out there are saying about themselves.
And that's where the rubbish comes in. For every tweet saying useful, important or interesting things like:
RT @Directgov Home Office and Directgov/innovate launch Safer Streets beta! - discuss at http://bit.ly/169gFK
or
Govt buildings being smashed, police batoning protesters, tear gas, rocks...head wounds all around Tehran. #IranElections
there are dozens saying things like:
Getting bored at work. I think I'll have a cup of tea.
or
This cup of tea is really nice. I wish I had a biscuit.
Now there's an argument that phatics – statements whose only function is to perform a social task – play an important role in community development. I’m not sure how that’s meant to work, but I suppose it might be helpful, for example, to get to know a bit more about what some of our electronic correspondents are like as people. One way to do this might be to overhear some of their chatter about cups of tea along with any interesting or important things they may say.
And I know a certain amount of semantic redundancy is necessary in any kind of communication. If every utterance was completely meaningful, we’d presumably get mental indigestion.
But I can’t be the only person who thinks these tweeters are overdoing the redundancy. The majority of the tweets landing on my screen can only be interesting to an anthropologist unfortunate enough to be studying just how brain-numbingly dull people can be.
You might say that I've missed the point of Twitter, that it's meant to be mostly phatic, and that if I don't like eavesdropping on strangers' banalities I should just switch them off. Stop following them.
If only.
The trouble is, these tweeters are among those that my colleagues and I have chosen to follow. They are mostly media professionals who occasionally have something to say that we might need to know about.
To all tweeters out there, here’s an idea: imagine you're in a very big room with hundreds of people, with all of whom you have some connection or shared interest, but most of whom you barely know, if at all. Now you may want to whisper to your best friend, sitting beside you, that you're dying for a pee/bored stiff/feeling a bit rough/whatever; but you're probably not going to want to shout it to everyone in the room. Are you?
There is a solution. If you feel the need to immortalise your every thought and deed in 140-character broadcasts, why not have two Twitter IDs: one for your close friends (or whoever you imagine might be interested in your sub-haiku evaluations of last night’s soap opera or this morning's coffee) and another one for the rest of the world.
Otherwise, too many people are going to find that too much of your content isn’t worth spending the few seconds it takes to read it. They'll conclude, in other words, that it's a complete waste of time.
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