I know I work in communications – but I couldn’t help myself – and before I knew it I had written a (short) year 10 response to an exam question that I wasn’t even asked – “Twitter use is growing every day. It is a valuable communications tool that connects people and foster’s a sense of belonging. Discuss”.
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I see twitter was out of control yesterday. I heard on the radio that there was some extraordinary amount of tweets per second – 3 or 4 thousand per second depending on which report you read.

http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/story/28-million-tweets-sent-in-about-three-hours-about/prKfyAdv0kGjF8GGnfixQA.cspx

http://www.benzinga.com/11/05/1050463/death-of-bin-laden-results-in-record-setting-4-000-tweets-per-second

The height was reached during Obama’s speech – but as the radio commentator said – which I totally agree with – instead of telling the ‘world’ what you think in less than ten words..why not actually listen to what the President was saying? It seems it is not enough these days to listen, pay attention or just experience something without having to put your own stamp on it.

I can only imagine how many people tweet from concerts for example – just put the phone away and enjoy the show – are you really adding any value by telling your 17 followers – half which are friends and family and the other half people who subscribed to you accidentally – what the f*ck you think of Katy Perry’s outfit (“totally awesome”) or Bieber’s latest dance move (“he’s so hot right now”)….

It has its place and I’m sure there are some very funny and wry commentator’s that would be quite amusing. But at the end of the day, is twitter simply for people who think what they have to say about truly monumental events (such as yesterday) or their daily mundane tasks important enough to broadcast? Do they think their opinion is so insightful or meaningful they have a burning desire to share it? Or do we as a society now simply seek self validation constantly – and (sadly) feel validated by the fact we have tweeted or updated Facebook? Are we so self-obsessed that unless we comment on something it hasn’t really happened?

Perhaps Twitter is the new expression of western society’s nationalism? Instead of running out into the streets and shooting off rounds from an AK-47 into the air – armed with I-Phones or Blackberry’s – crowds litter the streets of cyberspace with tweets instead of empty bullet casings. Maybe it is just a modern extension of shooting a gun in the air to tell people around you how you feel – but just like spraying bullets into the air – tweets disappear into pointlessness.

Do you think in 100 years there will be anyone that simply watches the sun rise over a river – sits for five minutes – and contentedly exhales and then gets stuck into their day without the need to broadcast how they spent their morning? Will there be anyone left that doesn’t feel the need to tell everyone everything that they do? Will someone be able to sit through a presentation, a play or a concert and not feel the need to pass comment?

I hope so. But I fear that 99 times out of a 100 that the glorious sun rise will be instantly tweeted or loaded onto a Facebook page – not to celebrate its beauty – but to simply say – with what all this boils down to – “look at me”…….

See the official declaration:
http://www.theyippie.com/TheYippie.com_/The_Yippie/Entries/2009/8/31_Yipsdom_of_the_Day.html

Who are you to say “There are a lot of people on there who post truly random crap”. Your definition of random crap is based on the assumption that it has to be relevant to lots of people to stop being random crap. This is the definition we used in the old one-to-many, mass message, traditional media environment.

But to use the words of Clay Shirky “That world has gone, never to return”

The networked world of social media is driven by random crap. It is both what constitutes most of its content and what gives it its power.

If you want to understand social media give this a read http://richardstacy.com/2009/06/05/andrew-keens-head-and-the-shift-from-institutions-to-processes/ and if you really want to get into this check out (warning – very long article) http://richardstacy.com/2008/11/20/gutenberg-and-the-social-media-revolution-an-investigation-of-the-world-where-it-costs-nothing-to-distribute-information/