My scorn for the new wave of 'social media' knows few bounds. I have discoursed on the topic a number of times this year - for instance, here and here (and here and here).
Now my America-based friend Sister Surly (until recently a Beijing drinking companion) has got me at it again. She works in this sort of area, and thus has been an enthusiastic adopter of these novel forms of communication. And I know that she found Twitter particularly welcome in rapidly introducing her to various social circles in Beijing when she arrived here earlier this year knowing just about no-one (my counter to this is that Beijing expattery is still a relatively small and very clubbable community, and she could have, would have - did! - meet people who could introduce her to all of these circles through regular real-world interactions; so, the supposed centrality of Twitter to her social life was somewhat of an illusion, I suggest). Well, anyway... she can't resist ribbing me (in an opening aside to this long and interesting post about something rather different) about my Luddite antipathy to these media. And I can't resist rejoining the battle (in the comments to that post).... Anyone else care to join in?? Oh, go on!!
Blogging GOOD (not an absolute good, but more good than bad on balance); Twitter BAD - I say.
2 comments:
There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so. I still think Twitter is nifty because I like how I use it in my life.
For the record, Twitter was not only useful for meeting these people, but for maintaining the relationships now that I'm gone. I have at least 5 people who I still have contact with via Twitter who I haven't communicated with via email, and I have no idea if they read my blog. It's just another tool in the tool chest, I say.
Hi, El - Happy New Year to you!
I see the appeal of Twitter to individual users who find that they have lots of friends who like to use it.
But taking a global view of the impact of the phenomenon - I much prefer e-mail, SMS, and blogging, which are more flexible and more universally accessible modes of communication.
The very short message limit on Twitter inevitably tends to cause a deterioration in quality of communication, encouraging an excess of trivia and ephemera - because it's very difficult to do anything else with it.
And it is cliquey. You're unusually good about trying to continue to make use of all those other - superior - forms of communication as well; but, in my experience, most Twitter fans aren't. It becomes a kind of addiction, so dominating their attention that they neglect the other forms of communication... and, thus, they start to neglect the friends who are not on Twitter.
I can see that there are many situations in which having a gun would be extremely useful. And I would like to think that I should be allowed to have one, because I could be trusted to use it responsibly. However, I firmly believe that mass gun ownership is a social evil.
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