Case in point: the Twittersphere (Twitter's the fastest-growing social-networking service, CNET cites the latest Nielsen figures as showing). People microblogging through their days while "following" their relatives, friends, colleagues, and other interesting people doing the same. A superficial glance by babyboomers yields predictable reactions like "narcissism on steroids." But there's more to this phenomenon. It de-isolates. It creates "ambient awareness," as Clive Thompson recently described it in the New York Times Magazine - a growing (sometimes sustained, sometimes intermittent) awareness of the thoughts and moods of people who interest you wherever they are, even on the other side of the world (you can unfollow anyone any time, and it's up to you how much you say what's on your mind). It gives fresh meaning to the term "global village" and challenges the old saw, "familiarity breeds contempt." For one thing, you're only hearing from people you care about and they're only hearing about you if you allow them to.
"Taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce," Thompson writes, "like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting" of the people you follow. He tells of a person who twittered about what sandwich she made each day. Another person he mentions thought it all sounded silly. Then he "discovered that he was beginning to sense the rhythms of his friends’ lives in a way he never had before. When one friend got sick with a virulent fever, he could tell by her Twitter updates when she was getting worse and the instant she finally turned the corner.... Even the daily catalog of sandwiches became oddly mesmerizing, a sort of metronomic click [maybe slightly comforting] that he grew accustomed to seeing pop up in the middle of each day" and would miss if it weren't there.
All this raises so many questions - you really have to read Thompson to see many of them thoughtfully considered.... Are all these weak ties superficializing friendship or affection, or adding to it - on personal and global levels? Does microblogging increase self-knowledge or the potential for narcissism? Does it help to objectivize personal troubles, get perspective, find solidarity, make us more vulnerable? Probably all the above - it depends on the individual. Experimenting with it myself, following fascinating thinkers in my general field of work (none of my relatives are on it!), I have found it to be a positive experience. There is this unprecedented sense of sort of intimacy being trustingly conveyed by people you only knew from a distance ("trust" is a key word in all this), as well as a sense of stimulation but also a bit of overload - people you respect posting so many links worth checking out.
One thing's certain: Twittering has a way of keeping us honest. You'd have to be an extremely gifted pathological liar (or actor always in character) to be someone other than yourself microblogging to a well-developed following even once a day (tell me if you disagree, anyone!). Thompson tells of a student of Zeynep Tufekci, a University of Maryland sociologist, who posted that the difference between Web 1.0 and being under the microscope of the social Web is that - as the old New Yorker cartoon showing two dogs conversing points out - on Web 1.0 no one could tell you were a dog. On Twitter, the social Web to the 10th power, everybody knows you're a dog!
[Tufekci's student might've read Michael Kinsley at Slate. See also: "Just because they crave attention?"]
Twitter in the classroom
Also see how Twitter is making classes - and thereby education - more village-like (see ArsTechnica). A communications professor approached Twitter the way many of us baby boomers do, thinking microblogging's all "solipsism and sound-bite communication," but after using it realized that it "brought him closer to his students, creating a personal connection that helped to increase their involvement in his classes." In this blog post is the experience of a Central Connecticut State U. professor who, after each class, twitters a reflection about how the class went. "Students who see the messages often give him a reality check." He said that if he twittered that he didn't think something got across, for example, sometimes students would twitter back that they "understood that fine" but were just distracted by ... [something outside of class] or they were tired.
Powerful things can happen when people can come to understand each other on even slightly deeper levels afforded by the kind of fairly frequent, candid, humanizing communication that happens in microblogging. Empathy emerges.
Think about what can happen when people feel empathy toward one another: compassion, civility, encouragement, empowerment, engagement, etc. Disinhibition - that condition of online experience that allows for cyberbullying, harassment, hate, etc. by dehumanizing people - becomes less of a factor. "Users" move through being mere participants to being citizens and community members.
Related links
Readers, feel free to disagree - send your comments to anne[at]netfamilynews.org or post them in our forum at ConnectSafely.org!
Thanks for the piece Anne. I like Twitter and have also found it a positive experience overall. I mostly agree with your argument, but not with "Empathy emerges." That's not a forgone conclusion. I'm having to unfollow people quite often lately because "irritation emerges."
ReplyDeleteTwitter gives everyone a chance at the microphone. Some hate it, some love it. Some have nothing to say, others a lot. The dangerous group is the people who have nothing to say, but after a few false-start stutters begin to love the feeling of having followers ... who must enjoy the sound of their voice (otherwise they wouldn't follow, right?) And they start life-casting and not mind-casting (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/03/on-twitter-mind.html).
I think that Twitter has taken communication to the next level, but I don't think that it's "the one" in this space ... we'll need a few more services/innovations before the dust settles and we find a comfortable way to live so (virtually) close to each other, filtering out the noise and enjoying the chatter.
Tx for your thoughtful comment, Three muskateers. I wrote that comment "empathy emerges" more in the context of the "Twitter in the classroom" part of my post - a teacher "thinking out loud" after class in front of his students can have a humanizing effect in an environment where prof and student have traditionally played out roles.
ReplyDeleteCertainly microblogging's annoying to a lot of people (did u see my post this wk about Dave Letterman's view?), Twitter can't possibly be "the one" in the space, and is not for everybody. But microblogging remains an opportunity for people to get to know each other at least more multi-dimensionally, which I think is humanizing, which in turn can lay the groundwork for empathy. Hope that makes some sense.
Thanks @Anne -- yes, that does make sense. It certainly is an exciting form of communication and it'll be interesting to see how it plays out over the next few years.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI'm sympathetic to the FT writer who felt conflicted about his Tweeting persona. I represent Symantec and Norton so I'm careful not to put too much personal info into my Tweets.
I miss some of my old anonymity on the web but love the community that Twitter gives. I think it's a worthwhile tradeoff.
Marian Merritt