Different strokes for different folks,
And so on and so on and Scooby dooby doo-bee.
(Everyday People by Sly and the Family Stone, 1968)
I get it. You are more than capable of making your own decisions concerning social media. Because I am profoundly committed to the idea that you possess free will, you do whatever you want. As for me, my aversion to Twitter has developed into full blown bitter contempt—a loathing born not from its requirement for brevity, which I admire, but from its mode of expression demanding abruptness, inspiring haste and facilitating the clandestine spread of gossip at the touch of a button.
Top Ten Truths Trumpeting Twitter Termination:
1. Life is short. Fifteen minutes of Twitter a day adds up to over ninety hours per year! There is simply more to life than typing on your cell phone.
2. Nuance is nonexistent. Missing is the subordinate clause, with all of its subtlety inducing beauty, patiently creating interest and establishing tone.
3. Speech requires thought. Shorter messages truncate thinking, reduce idea marination, and rush cooking time—making food for thought tough to digest.
4. Composition is distracting. Exchanges occupy life’s gaps—in line, prior to a meeting or while eating lunch. When it’s time to leave, tweets get rushed.
5. Bluntness is rude. The 140 character format promotes a directness so often mistaken for sheer cruelty that “Twitter War” has entered our vocabulary.
6. Stalking is evil. You don’t call, write, text or post—you follow. From a distance. Knowing their every move. This sounds like the language of stalking.
7. Being followed is scary. Suppose a stranger follows you down a city street. Uncertain of his intentions, you feel vulnerable and exposed. Because you are.
8. Falsehood is rewarded. Lenient registration terms invite Fake Identities—masks behind which cowards may sling mud immune from any consequences.
9. Why repeat gossip? Retweet it instead, using the most efficient gossip delivery system in world history. Press the button. Your followers and theirs will too.
10. Other options exist. Why share frequently blunt and hastily written notes prone to spread like wildfire with unidentified and possibly hostile followers?
Tolkien wrote, “All that is gold does not glitter. Not all those who wander are lost. ” But I say, “All are not sold on this Twitter. For too few are counting the cost.”
And I was just going to create, “FakeRickPatrick”. Wow.
Actually, I was honored to find that FakeDaveMiller had been created, until it went inactive.
I use twitter – my son is the “machine-learning genius” (his unofficial title ; perhaps a slight father’s overstatement) behind twitter, so I cannot speak against it.
But while it can be used for good, I think your warnings are well-taken and ought to be heeded.
When you passed from high office, your fake account went dormant. You lost half your followers and it just wasn’t worth it anymore.
At least, that’s what my sources tell me.
It’s a shame that tools like social networking sites that could be used for so much good often are abused instead. Even by Christians.
I like Twitter, but agree with your observations about how it can be misused. And I’ll continue to use it to stalk Dave.
Stalking Dave is the second greatest use of Twitter possible.
A close second to that second is celebrating SEC sports and mocking the Yankees.
Both of which help with stalking Dave.
Do you realize the irony behind tweeting this article to all your followers?
Bawahahaha….
Just an observation, but people use to say exactly the same thing about the internet. That Christians should “avoid” using it to communicate ideas because of many of the same reasons you just listed Rick. Now the technological boogieman is twitter.
Perhaps it is not the means of communication that is the problem, but how we communicate in general that is the problem. I act on twitter, Facebook, forums, ect. the same as I do in real life. I do not change how I am. And I wager that most people are the same. Those who are boisterous, confrontational, hateful, on twitter, act exactly the same in person on twitter and in person. 140 characters does not change how you act.
Frankly, I get frustrated with twitter because 140 is not enough to express my thoughts. It should not surprise anyone when I say then that I tend to be (verified by observations from others) to be long winded in person. Sometimes it takes me 10 sentences to say what others can say in 2. Thus for me, Twitter is hard to do because I don’t have the space. It doesn’t change who I am. And I wager that it does not change anyone. Again, who they are on twitter is a very very good indicator of who they are in “real life”.
I certainly disagree that people are willing to say in person everything that they are willing to say on the internet. Therefore, we all must be careful in how we act on the internet.
However, you are absolutely right in another respect. Out of the overflow of the heart the finger tweets.
Some of us don’t command the social consideration to be able to speak out loud face to face what we would say if we could. Social media is attractive to people like me who don’t get a lot of socialization otherwise. Sometimes a digital friend is better than no friend. But my character is the same online as it is in real life, except with words.
” Out of the overflow of the heart the finger tweets.”
Coining a new phrase?
Wait…Or dost thou quoteth a newfangled translation or something?
It is the NCT…New Calvinist Translation.
😉
Lol.
I would agree that some people don’t say things in person that they would online. But that is more about issue with public speaking in general, rather than Twitter empowerment (twittempowerment? if we are coining new words/phrases). That is something that I have struggled with. I was a very quite person due to feelings of inadequacy (stemming from being bullied), and I rarely spoke up. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, ext have actually helped me, precisely because giving me one avenue to express my thoughts have given me the encouragement to express those very same thoughts at other times.
Ultimately I think it gets to your second point Adam, and what I tried to express. What a person “Tweets” is not something that Twitter “draws out” but rather originates in a person’s heart. Whether or not they express those thoughts as clearly/directly in other avenues of conversation (blogs, letters to the editors, in person, ect) as they do with twitter, does not change anything. Twitter does not change a nice person into a “fire berating monster”, the monster is already there, and will find avenues for that monster to come out, whether it is twitter, blogs, or even from behind the pulpits.
I don’t have a twitter account. I do “follow” one person in the sense of bringing up his feed every other day or so. He’s a College Station-based reporter for the San Antonio Express News and the Houston Chronicle and he generally has a finger-on-the-pulse of things related to A&M sports. He’s also a believer and it shows in how he differentiates between character-related gossip and news-related rumors.
I probably read my FB newsfeed a couple of times per day. The majority of what most people do there is share/link to stuff which–as in retweets–is a form of regurgitation more than anything else. Given that most of us find physical regurgitation so unpleasant, you have to wonder why we’re so enamored with the virtual form of it…(disclaimer: I do occasionally share/link and most other interactions are comments on statuses from friends and it’s probably 2/3rds response to their true “news” v. 1/3rd response to shares/links.)
My general feeling is that we’re not going to perfect ourselves, so I’m somewhat more tolerant of imperfection in others today than I was in my earlier days (I’m also less of a Type A today than I was then…) There are circumstances, though, where I’m not tolerant of imperfection, of course, but I can pretty much always excuse my own…
I think of “media” in general as being a substrate for both communication and some variants of artistic expression, whether it’s painting, video, written, or whatever. While I certainly would prefer that our “best muses” (emphasis on the irony of a believer using that phrase with “good intent”) would inspire us to relate through media in a way that underlines our beliefs, I recognize that ALL BELIEVERS struggle with continuing sin and most don’t have a really good handle on how to avoid it. I think it’s much better–given that–to prescribe honesty as a method of interaction than to recommend hedging of sin that could be mistaken as creating an appearance of lack of it. But that’s just me.
I will mention something that I confess causes me annoyance: quotation of Bible verses on social media without some form of interpretation of why that struck the eye of the quoter that day. It seems flippant and while it might be productive spiritually (either for the quoter or for some anonymous reader), I wonder if it isn’t better to attach a testimony to it…just a thought on one thing that sometimes causes me a modicum of irritation.
We do have to give Rick props for an inventive title.
What about the rest of the plane?
Looks like I’m not the only one. http://usat.ly/1dsHgMP