Before every human in the civilized world had access to the internet around the clock with laptops, cell phones, PDAs, and internet cafes, people actually got together to talk, have meetings, do lunch, and just hang out. They even used snail mail for birthday cards and post cards from tropical vacation spots.
Nowadays, however, people don’t talk. They email, chat, text message, instant message and post all too many updates online so that everyone can have all the latest details on what they are thinking, where they are going, what they are wearing, or what they are eating.
Is any of this even interesting? Does it have meaning? What kind of life, or lack of, must a person have in order to have the time to send hourly updates to “followers” and “friends” who obviously share the same needy lifestyle, apparently craving all this meaningless information?
And not only are we twittering and following and updating and reading on an exponential daily growth level, but companies are now getting involved! What happened to plain old ordinary websites? Not good enough! Now the likes of IBM and Apple have a highly rated presence on Facebook and Twitter. Their followers just can’t wait to get their hourly messages with important updates!
Is any of this really necessary? Apparently millions of people say “absolutely”. Children in school Twitter all day long about taking tests, skipping class, and complaining about teachers. Grown adults add daily updates, photos, videos, and blogs to their Facebook and other social networking pages.
Twittering has become a form of therapy, an online type of journal or diary. Somewhere we can pour our hearts out knowing someone will listen and even care. Perhaps a form of confession where the confessor sits in the dark, quiet and unobtrusive, but listening to each and word we speak.
Twitter-holics must even learn a new type of texting shorthand which is mandatory in order to get a complete thought into the 140 character limit for each message. Users must even learn how to find web sites that will shorten URL links which can be added to messages. Moreover, for those who are linking their twitter accounts to other social media platform like Instagram, it is important to find some ways to grow their audience. One of the best ways is through BuzzVoice I Instant Instagram likes. With this, you can easily grow your following.
Cryptic quotes and confusing updates are swapped, sent, uploaded and read on such a frequent basis that Twitter needed to develop a special error page saying “Sorry, there are too tweets in the system right now. Try back later.” They have apparently blown their bandwith!
Has society, the world over, really reached the point where we have achieved a social addiction that doesn’t even include being with people? Are we addicted to the ease of communicating with total strangers, or are we truly grasping for a sense of belonging? Do we really want to know that our new follower in Greenland is making a cup of tea before bed? Or is it the fact that someone finds us important enough to share this information with?
To help us twitter and tweet all day and all night, entire businesses have been developed to help our messages mean more, look better, and don’t need our constant attention. We can twitter with special pages, add RSS feeds, design headers, send messages to our cell phones, autoreply to sign ups, and even advertise our own blogs and products for sale.
There are even contests to see who can get the most followers in the shortest period of time. Gathering followers and following them in return can be turned into an automated system whereby we don’t even need to have contact with these folks by inviting them personally – we have a software program do it for us. And they call this “social” networking?
Has Twitter really done anything that makes our lives easier, reduces stress, helps us get our jobs done, or even make money? Actually, yes on all accounts, surprisingly enough.
Even though many of the Twitterers out there do spend the majority of their time sending meaningless blurbs about their boring hourly activities, many Twitterers have turned their accounts into viral marketing venues that work well for them. These individuals are true Twitter junkies; they have found a way to work the system and do more with this little piece of technology than informing the masses of their breakfast selections.
So Twitter away. No one can complain that you’re wasting too much time because they are probably too busy sending Tweets to their own followers!
