[LINK] "Why so many love to hate Twitter"

[rfmcdonald]

Globe and Mail web columnist Ivor Tossell has a short sweet column presenting his take on why some people (not me) just do not like Twitter. "Twitter is a remarkable service that’s given the general public some good reasons to think poorly of it." Tossell comes up with four points--its initial impenetrability to newcomers, a seeming necessary inanity, Twitter's ability to reinforce tight-knit communities of professionals and friends and family, and the performativity and artifice of identity on Twitter--but, he concludes, these four points are product of the fear that the Internet will dumb and simplify too much.

Ultimately, Twitter scares people because its concept plays to contemporary fears. The idea of millions of people writing very short notes about things that may or may not be profound sparks worries about such things as the dumbing-down of media, the fragmentation of attention spans and the loss of authentic offline interactions (whatever those were).

It’s mostly nonsense. Twitter doesn’t actually behave like that. It can pay off with real conversation, real learning, and real-life socialization – but this is almost impossible to see without joining, and plowing through the initial slog. And as long as its upsides stay hidden while its downsides hang out, Twitter is likely to remain adored by its devotees and derided by the rest.

For what it's worth, I find Twitter useful as a source of links, occasional quick exchanges with people I'm working on projects with, the odd hilarity, and a constant reminder to me that I need to pare down my prose for sake of efficiency and style. That last point aside, my experience in the Twittersphere is not too different from the way the blogosphere used to be for me, actually, back when my experience was all so much more shorter and dialogical. LiveJournal back in 2002 was fun.