Recently, I've noticed the rise of Twitter, the "micro-blogging" social networking site. I've always been interested in these kinds of Web 2.0-era concepts, but never entirely understood this concept. Why do you need or want to know what someone is doing at any given time of the day?
Twitter justifies its existence with the simple rational that the first thing we ask someone when we see them is "What are you doing?" In some sense, I'm inclined to agree; what our friends and and family are doing is generally something in which we take great interest, but to me, I don't exactly see why we need to know exactly what everyone is thinking at every waking moment.
I do see the practicality of such a tool, as it's a short, sweet and general form of communication that can help coordinate events or inform others of what you're planning on doing if they would like to accompany you.
It also forces you to be concise, making your messages short, sweet and to the point. In a lot of ways, that can make information easier to get across. This has proven to hold true, as in crisis situations, Twitter has been used by eyewitnesses to quickly get on-the-ground info to outsiders so they can better assist, such as during the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, or the bushfires in Victoria in February.
Of course, this brings up the issue, how much is too much? Do we really need to know exactly what someone is doing just when they're doing it? Or is there some element to this disconnection that keeps us human or helps us in some way? I think that running at such a fast pace and keeping our distance through technology is ultimately detrimental to us as a society, and though things like this are great and definitely useful, we should be wary of the thin line between effective communication and the removal of the human element.
It seems like a lot of fuss to make over 150 characters, doesn't it?
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