April 23, 2009 at 15:17About twitter and abrupt thinking
About Twitter on a hub write a lot and write a miscellaneous. Some explain why he is good, others are surprised at his uselessness, others just write about the news related to him. Nevertheless, it seems that there has not yet been a general conversation about twitter as a social phenomenon, but this is a very interesting conversation: what does such a huge popularity of this service mean and does it mean anything at all? From my point of view, the popularity of twitter means a negative trend, moreover, twitter, as a phenomenon, is part of a more general negative trend, the manifestations of which can be found in many. What are these trends and I will try to consistently explain in this article. Some time ago, I already published it on my blog , but I hope it will be interesting to habralyudami.
The appearance of blogs at one time aroused the most daring and even romantic hopes. In fact, the distance between the writing person by his reader was reduced to the minimum possible, even html was no longer necessary to know, just go online and register in one of the blog services. No obstacles like editorial offices of magazines, publishing houses, printing houses and other remnants of the old era. Only a blogger and reader. A stunning, unprecedented situation that allowed us to talk about new, unprofessional journalism, which will replace the traditional one - there will always be a blogger in any part of the world who will instantly notify the Network about any event, and an event to which he himself will be an eyewitness. Immediately, a conversation arose about setoratura, which, if not a substitute, would prettyly supplant traditional literature. In part, these hopes came true. Several writers really gained recognition through the Web, and quotes from LiveJournal began to be used in television news releases. But only in part. It quickly became clear that not everyone, of those who got the opportunity to be read, knows how to write and not everyone has something to write about. It turned out that journalism is still a separate profession that needs to be studied, but the seture does not exist at all, there is literature and not literature.
A blog, as a way of publishing any material comparable to publishing on paper, was found to be relatively popular. And it could not be otherwise: not everyone was given the talent to write. Blogs remained the second main function, namely the function of communication. To some extent, blogs continue to do just that. This is especially true for LJ. However, with the advent of social networks, the number of people using blogs has begun to decline. More and more magazines drop and stop updating. This can be seen from the statistics published by Yandex. And it’s clear where the users go: social networks are more convenient for communication than blogs, and of course, people reached there, just like they had gone from blogs to forums.
However, along with social networks, a second type of service has appeared, which, obviously, delays some bloggers. These are microblogs and especially Twitter, of course.
Twitter has long been a mystery to me. I did not understand why and who needs it. It is not convenient as a means of communication, it looks like chat rooms that seem to be in the past, with the only difference being that now everyone has their own chat room. And, of course, it is absolutely not suitable for the publication of any texts, not to mention multimedia. The very nature of Twitter is amazing. This service differs from what was before it, from blogs, not by the availability of new functions, but by the restriction (!) Of old ones: if the blog had the opportunity to put text of almost unlimited size, then there are only 140 characters, if there are comments on the blog, then on Twitter, responses to other people's replicas are added to the same tape as their own replicas, and no discussions can be conducted in practice, because after the second or third exchange it becomes difficult to understand
They say that such a restriction disciplines, forces you to formulate your thoughts as concisely as possible. Practice shows that the vast majority of tweets do not contain any thoughts at all. Moreover, the top tweets that thousands read are filled with nonsense. The tweets on Twitter are short, fragmentary, but not concise. Because laconicism, the talent encountered is even less common than the talent of writing. Moreover, even a person who knows how to express succinctly, far from every thought is able to express in 140 characters, just physically need at least a little more.
Another feature that is often called is the ability to write using SMS. At the same time they say that for Russia this opportunity works poorly and is advised to use analogues. In any case, this function is very specific and it is difficult to imagine a situation in which it would be necessary.
Or they write that Twitter is a way to notify your subscribers about updates on the main blog. Why is this necessary if there is rss? Several other features are cited as a reason to use Twitter, but they are all even less satisfactory than those mentioned. Why did twitter and microblogging in general become so popular and become more and more popular?
Some time ago I wrote about the abruptness of thinking. I wrote that people began to think and speak not in phrases, but in fragments of phrases, that the integrity of thinking disappears, that the very structure of perception of information changes. When I stumble across a network somewhere on a post or comment consisting of pairs of words interspersed with constant dots, I think I was right then. Sometimes I start to think that it’s not worthwhile to draw such global conclusions from such small observations that people still study at universities, write some essays, do some kind of scientific work, which means they must still have systemic thinking skills. Be that as it may, the popularity of twitter is a manifestation of the steepness of thinking.
On Twitter, steepness is back to normal. In essence, this is a global leveling, blurring the boundaries between those who can write and those who do not; between those who have something to say and those who have nothing. There is no difference between the most popular tweets and the most unpopular ones - there is no difference at all - everyone is forced to express themselves in scanty fragments of phrases, small pieces of thoughts, pieces of words. This is a machine that cuts for itself not just everything above the minimum level, but everything that in principle can (!) Be above the minimum level, all for which you need more than 140 characters.
The appearance of blogs at one time aroused the most daring and even romantic hopes. In fact, the distance between the writing person by his reader was reduced to the minimum possible, even html was no longer necessary to know, just go online and register in one of the blog services. No obstacles like editorial offices of magazines, publishing houses, printing houses and other remnants of the old era. Only a blogger and reader. A stunning, unprecedented situation that allowed us to talk about new, unprofessional journalism, which will replace the traditional one - there will always be a blogger in any part of the world who will instantly notify the Network about any event, and an event to which he himself will be an eyewitness. Immediately, a conversation arose about setoratura, which, if not a substitute, would prettyly supplant traditional literature. In part, these hopes came true. Several writers really gained recognition through the Web, and quotes from LiveJournal began to be used in television news releases. But only in part. It quickly became clear that not everyone, of those who got the opportunity to be read, knows how to write and not everyone has something to write about. It turned out that journalism is still a separate profession that needs to be studied, but the seture does not exist at all, there is literature and not literature.
A blog, as a way of publishing any material comparable to publishing on paper, was found to be relatively popular. And it could not be otherwise: not everyone was given the talent to write. Blogs remained the second main function, namely the function of communication. To some extent, blogs continue to do just that. This is especially true for LJ. However, with the advent of social networks, the number of people using blogs has begun to decline. More and more magazines drop and stop updating. This can be seen from the statistics published by Yandex. And it’s clear where the users go: social networks are more convenient for communication than blogs, and of course, people reached there, just like they had gone from blogs to forums.
However, along with social networks, a second type of service has appeared, which, obviously, delays some bloggers. These are microblogs and especially Twitter, of course.
Twitter has long been a mystery to me. I did not understand why and who needs it. It is not convenient as a means of communication, it looks like chat rooms that seem to be in the past, with the only difference being that now everyone has their own chat room. And, of course, it is absolutely not suitable for the publication of any texts, not to mention multimedia. The very nature of Twitter is amazing. This service differs from what was before it, from blogs, not by the availability of new functions, but by the restriction (!) Of old ones: if the blog had the opportunity to put text of almost unlimited size, then there are only 140 characters, if there are comments on the blog, then on Twitter, responses to other people's replicas are added to the same tape as their own replicas, and no discussions can be conducted in practice, because after the second or third exchange it becomes difficult to understand
They say that such a restriction disciplines, forces you to formulate your thoughts as concisely as possible. Practice shows that the vast majority of tweets do not contain any thoughts at all. Moreover, the top tweets that thousands read are filled with nonsense. The tweets on Twitter are short, fragmentary, but not concise. Because laconicism, the talent encountered is even less common than the talent of writing. Moreover, even a person who knows how to express succinctly, far from every thought is able to express in 140 characters, just physically need at least a little more.
Another feature that is often called is the ability to write using SMS. At the same time they say that for Russia this opportunity works poorly and is advised to use analogues. In any case, this function is very specific and it is difficult to imagine a situation in which it would be necessary.
Or they write that Twitter is a way to notify your subscribers about updates on the main blog. Why is this necessary if there is rss? Several other features are cited as a reason to use Twitter, but they are all even less satisfactory than those mentioned. Why did twitter and microblogging in general become so popular and become more and more popular?
Some time ago I wrote about the abruptness of thinking. I wrote that people began to think and speak not in phrases, but in fragments of phrases, that the integrity of thinking disappears, that the very structure of perception of information changes. When I stumble across a network somewhere on a post or comment consisting of pairs of words interspersed with constant dots, I think I was right then. Sometimes I start to think that it’s not worthwhile to draw such global conclusions from such small observations that people still study at universities, write some essays, do some kind of scientific work, which means they must still have systemic thinking skills. Be that as it may, the popularity of twitter is a manifestation of the steepness of thinking.
On Twitter, steepness is back to normal. In essence, this is a global leveling, blurring the boundaries between those who can write and those who do not; between those who have something to say and those who have nothing. There is no difference between the most popular tweets and the most unpopular ones - there is no difference at all - everyone is forced to express themselves in scanty fragments of phrases, small pieces of thoughts, pieces of words. This is a machine that cuts for itself not just everything above the minimum level, but everything that in principle can (!) Be above the minimum level, all for which you need more than 140 characters.