It's no secret that I'm sort of a big big fan of change, newness, adventure, exploration. It's why I get sucked into so many "task forces" at work, it's why I poke at buttons on a new camera or phone even when I don't know what they do. While not always the first adopter, I'm always willing to give it a try and look like I know what I'm doing.
The link below is to a beautiful and insightful article about Twitter, and I encourage both fans and foes of that little blue bird to give it a read.
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/paul-constant-reviews-twitter/Content?oid=1774875
Thinking back to 2004, when I started this blog, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. were not the prolific connectors they are today. Writing here felt very exposed and, as Paul writes in the article, narcissistic.
But now, I check up on my friends (new and old, ones I see every day and those I'll never meet) daily, and get to experience the wonder that is the myriad of directions that life has taken us all. It's not just seeing where they work or looking at photos of their kids' birthday parties, it's opening our eyes to what life really is....it's big, baby. And the more we use these technologies to connect, lurk, link, and share, the more we allow room in ourselves for empathy, comedy, and variety.
That may be the optimist's view of the interwebs, but hey I'm just pushing buttons to figure this out.
A few of the passages from Paul's article that most resonated with me are these:
We're telling each other stories, 140 characters at a time, as they unfold. If you can't see the value in that, you're hopeless.
It's watching the human inventiveness that arises from the restrictions—watching the way people play with the limited space—that's fun.
As in haiku, which has dozens of esoteric limitations, when you constrain a form, you can often broaden what people can do with it.
Of course people chafe at the constraints and make messes of language trying to shoehorn it in. (It's because we're humans. It's what we do.)
And lots of people take smug satisfaction from pointing out that Twitter is a fad, like Friendster, that will soon disappear.
They're right, of course.
But specifically, what's wrong with fads? What's wrong with trying out new things or acting like kids playing dress-up in a full wardrobe?
I love this article. Twitter forces us to be economical with our words. I just hate all the hateful opinions out there, though.
Posted by: Erin | July 14, 2009 at 12:35 PM