I’m sipping coffee as I write this entry. Does that not interest you? It seems to interest the large and growing mass of Twitter users around the world. I’m not really sure why the social IM concept has taken off as wildly as it has. It seems to quench our curiosity about what other people are doing during the day by providing a continuous barrage of short, activity briefings. Perhaps the reason that I don’t get it is that I am not really that curious as to what my ‘network’ of friends or colleagues is doing every minute of the day. I’m usually busy doing my own thing. Sure, I like to catch up regularly with those in my social and/or professional circle; but somehow I don’t feel a need to be engaged with them every 10 seconds or 10 minutes for that matter. So what drives the success of this “Guess what I’m doing now” model of community that Twitter offers?
In the 10 seconds that it would take me to enter “Just started a blog post about Twitter” I could have accomplished 10 more seconds of writing the blog post. It is almost as if we are seeking validation after every event that we actually do. Doing something, then letting others know that we just did it. “I just wrote another sentence about Twitter on my blog post”. Obviously, users don’t usually post a play-by-play of their life, but all entries that I have come across certainly appear less than fascinating. Below is a clip from the Twitter homepage, which illustrates the typical twitter entries that users, for whatever reason, spend their days writing and reading.
Kathy Sierra contributed a wonderful piece several months ago that discusses the psychology of our twittering minds. If only someone would create a technological platform that would let us know what isn’t being done as a result of the time spent constantly trying to monitor the flow of what is going on somewhere else.
My wife and I thought that, unlike our parents, we would understand our daughters’ generation and the associated evolution of their language, music and interests. We are in touch and open to change; and surely we are much cooler than our own parents were when they were our age. I’m beginning to have second thoughts now. I hope that our girls can focus on their own lives and environments and physical relationships and find a balance as they embrace technologies like Twitter which will seek to demand their continuous attention.
…and here’s a bit of satire from myself on the matter
* To see this and other comic strips from The Messaging Times, just click the strip.
tags: twitter IM Kathy Sierra social psychology comic strips attention technology
