This blogpost was inspired by a post by Erin Ryan, a blogger for the social media blog, Soshable. Although, not a heavy twitter user myself, I’ve finally started to understand the social media vibe that is Twitter. Before I couldn’t understand what its purpose was; why “tweet” your thoughts and feelings at a particular moment to the public. What’s the need?
What I’ve learned, in the short amount of time I’ve been using it, is that Twitter is instant, and in some senses more personal. It’s like sending those thoughts that would have otherwise remained tucked up and hidden in the left side of your brain into the world. Twitter provides those thoughts a voice as well as an accepting audience (because everyone uses it the same way). So is Twitter bringing us closer to a faster future? Maybe. Like Erin Ryan says about Grey’s Anatomy, it has the potential to save lives in a critical moment. With its speed and ease of use, news, messages, instructions, recommendations, and other comments can be sent within seconds, and not just to one person, but up to thousands.
Imagine a future where one person’s amazing thought or idea transported around the world and came back in seconds through tweets and retweets and appeared on giant billboards, LCD Screens or newspapers the following hour or even the following minute. Sound impossible? I’m wondering if Twitter’s been able to do that all ready.
Back to the question of “what’s the need?” – Twitter is just another way to communicate, and besides calling up a person directly, it’s probably just about the fastest and most convenient way to speak when you’ve got a little voice.
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