Over the past few months, I’ve been asked by many people “Why do you tweet?” or “What’s so great about Twitter?” It’s a completely valid question and one that I love talking about. I signed up for Twitter back in April of 2007, used it for a weekend, and thought it was ridiculous. Who in the world wanted to know what I was doing. I was only following a few people and not many were following me, and it seemed like I was just sending out meaningless bits of information about my day to know one. Which I was probably was. And I had just read this article about being hyperconnected. And so I quit.
About one year later, around May of 2008, I became an active Twitter user. I began to understand it more. I began to follow many more people – and found that more people were following me as well. I found that Twitter was indeed developing my sixth sense – or in the words of Danah Boyd – my “peripheral awareness.” Others – like Clive Thompson have also referred to this phenomenon as “ambient awareness.” At any rate – as you can probably tell – I’m a huge proponent of Twitter now (and I was on Twitter waaaaay before @Oprah was, just for the record).
A few days ago, a friend of mine (Adam Copeland – I can call him out on my blog because he called me out on his…) told people that they were fully-warned that he may stop following them if their tweets didn’t fall into line with his list of criteria for worthwhile tweets. I had to laugh a little bit, because I’m pretty sure that he has already “hidden” me from his News Feed on Facebook. But, he has apparently grown tired of reading what people ate for breakfast on Twitter, and now he’s ready to do some culling of who he follows on Twitter.
So, first – as some other people mentioned on his post have already said – it’s totally up to Adam who he follows and who he doesn’t. Twitter should be something that he enjoys and finds useful – and if you don’t like following someone – then just unfollow them. It’s that easy. I’m sure I’ll be unfollowed sometime soon – but…I’m okay with that. But…(something else I alluded to in my comment) it seems as though he may be heading down the road of eventually becoming a Twitter snob – and I certainly wouldn’t want that for him. He writes:
“…Most of twitter is, indeed, pointless babble. Or, at least, I’m finding Twitter to be of much less benefit than it might be, and not without a plethora of annoyances.”
He then gives a list of things that make a “worthwhile” tweet and a list of things that make an “annoying” tweet. My beef is that Twitter is not just one thing. Clearly it is something that has many purposes:
- Advertising/Marketing for businesses & organizations
- Fun way to keep friends & family updated on daily experiences
- Great way to network with like-minded individuals and organizations
- Something that is just FUN
- Resource for practically anything
- Great way to get feedback from clients, friends and others
- Amazing way to get news out to the world (think #IranElection)
- Quick way of getting information and recommendations from trusted sources
And I think as soon as we make Twitter into “needing” to be one thing, we do Twitter a disservice. I think that in some ways I try to utilize as many purposes of Twitter as possible with my own personal @adamwc account. And for me, I really do think there is a benefit to the ambient awareness that is created with such a social tool. I enjoy hearing what people have for breakfast, or what random thought is going through their head at that moment, or if they’re stuck waiting at the DMV, or if they just got back from a run, or if they just spent 2 hours at the YMCA working out, or if they just got home from back-to-school shopping with their kids. It helps me stay connected with folks I wouldn’t get to keep up with otherwise. And that has some inherent benefit and worth to me.
Sure there are times when some tweets can be annoying (and I’ve contributed to that myself – as did thousands others – during the @SquareSpace iPhone giveaway). But – that’s all part of figuring out and learning a new creative electronic medium.
I could go into the ways in which I think Twitter (and Facebook, for that matter) has helped my ministry – but that’s probably for another blog post.
I love Twitter for the same reasons Adam Copeland loves Twitter. But I also love the mundane – the boring – the trivial – the food tweets (even cat food tweets). I think our esteemed Moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA) said it well when he tweeted:
What if there really isn’t any mundane? What if we really do believe that all things are spiritual? What if the random, seemingly pointless babble of Twitter is key to some deeper awareness and knowledge of those we care about? I don’t know – but I look forward to seeing how people use this powerful social tool in the future – both for their individual lives and for ministry.
Why do you use Twitter? Do you think certain tweets are annoying? What makes a “worthwhile” tweet for you?
Related posts:
- 5 Tips to Detect Your Twitter Spam
- Signing Up For and Using Twitter
- How to Get Work Done and Stay Connected
- Twitter of Faith
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Nice post. There a bunch of tweets that are annoying for sure – here are some from my POV:
1) Abusive and vulgar language. You’ve got 140 characters and you want to waste some of with junk? C’mon.
2) SPAM – get rich quick, diet, exercise, pills, etc. STOP it already. See comment #1 above.
3) “Got 1,00000000000000 Twitter Followers in 1 DAY! U can 2! Click here ” — If that’s the case, how come your follower count is no where near it — and yes, I waited TWO DAYS to check again. Still no bump in your follower count!
4) “I only need XX more followers to hit the X,XXX mark. Please RT!”. If you acted this way in middle school, you would never become popular, why do you think it would work here?
5) “12345 emails in my inbox. Drowning…send help.” — I did already — check your email, buddy!
6) RT of anything from Guy Kawasaki – we all follow him already, no need to duplicate the efforts. Try something original next time please.
The best tweets are those that respond to something I’ve tweeted about, answered a question, following up on conversations (offline, online, on twitter, etc)…basically anything toward authentic relationships. Under this category are some of those mundane tweets because that’s when you have real connections with people established already and you can care about the little things in someone else’s life.
Thanks for sharing Adam!
For me, the issue with twitter is that I find it too duplicative of functionalities I already get on FaceBook. It is different, sure…but if what you’re looking for is a broad, ambient awareness of your social network, you can get something pretty darn close through FB.
I suppose I also struggle with the idea that every moment is spiritual. I actually don’t mind the sharing of life minutia. It reinforces the bonds between us, and gives us a sense of common humanity. The question is: is that spiritual? For some of us, those pomoShakers and neomonastics whose thoughts roam to God in even the most simple things, that might be true. But most tweets and status updates do not surface those moments of numinous presence in the mundane, or bear witness to the struggle to manifest God’s grace and justice. They are just process statements. Not evil. Not monstrous. Still worth doing. But not sacred and God-transforming. And that’s fine. Having a sense of others as human is a not a bad thing.
While all things *can* be spiritual, for that to be true requires attention and intentionality in both how we live and in how we articulate those moments.
The first two times I joined Twitter, I thought it was worthless. I was following maybe 10 people, and I doubt anyone was following me. I tried to find people to follow, but it was hard finding the people I was interested in.
I liked Facebook better. I would “tweet” there, and I liked hearing what my friends were up to.
And then Bruce Reyes-Chow put out a list of Presbyterians who are on Twitter. And I starting following them. And some have started following me. And now it’s much more interesting. I’m finding news articles, I’ve connected with a few people, I’ve learned how to read lots of disjointed thoughts (learning to read tweets takes a while, which is maybe why people get frustrated with it at first). Someone just asked about songs to use during the Prayers of the People. I looked some up, and found a song I’d like to try. Not only was my answer helpful for him, his asking the question was helpful for me.
But the most important reason I want to be on Twitter is because I’ve started a new blog and I want to get the word out. I love creative worship. After teaching a creative worship class at Synod School, and having 35 interested students, I tried to think of a way I could teach creative worship back home. And I decided a blog was the best way. But what’s the point of putting all that work into a blog if no one knows about it? So now I’m on Twitter, and hopefully those who are looking for a resource on creative worship will find it. http://www.freshworship.wordpress.com
Nice post – have enjoyed your blog a nice fusion of tech and spirit.
I’m a relative newbie to twitter. At first I saw it’s use as a duplication of facebook but attended #can30 and twitter took on a whole new meaning. I thoroughly enjoyed the interactive experience of side conversations while listening to keynotes, particularly since it was encouraged. It also allowed the audience to immediately vent if the speaker said something completely ridiculous.
Have any of the readers ever responded to tweets on their sermons during the sermon? – hyperactive question period?
Pros:
* life stream
* used to email a bunch of folks when I read a cool blog, now I just tweet it out
* Awesome for attending live events whether it be a concert or conference
* breaking news (Iran elections great example, but recently we had tornadoes blow through and folks were tweeting live video references)
* really like the selective facebook application that pics up tweets that contain #fb
Cons:
* can’t stand tweeters who don’t go by their real identities
* can’t stand marketers that bleet their wares to the world
Thanks, Adam. Good points, and I’m still thinking about several of them. I’m all for knowing and participating in the minutiae of many folks’ lives — heck, that’s what pastoral care is after all! And I guess I’m all for ambient awareness too. I just wonder where/when to draw the line before it becomes too much? When does the periphery become so large that we lose sight of those close to use? (I think of mission trips to far off places when there are needs right at home.)
But I do take your basic point that Twitter is what you make of it; it can’t be pigeon-holed into one certain type of tool.
For me, it is important that I draw boundaries around my use and perusal of online information. I need to create some boundaries about the way that I interact online so that those interactions can remain meaningful.
I choose only to friend people on Facebook whom I know in real life; this choice means that, for me, Facebook provides a meaningful landscape of information about my friends’ lives, rather than an impersonal landscape of information about strangers’ lives. The same goes with the blogs and news sources that I choose to read. I pick topics that are interesting to me, and I read news sources that report on issues that are important to me, and I read the blogs of friends of mine. But I don’t spend a lot of time online reading things outside that scope, lest I get overwhelmed and super-saturated with information that, in the end, renders the online interaction meaningless.
So the same goes for Twitter. I have an account. I follow a small handful of friends there, a handful of blogs, a few musicians, a couple businesses/organizations, and a few news sources. The boundaries that I choose to draw around my Twitter life are, again, boundaries personal to me in order to ensure that my Twitter usage is meaningful and not meaningless. I don’t care what a stranger ate for breakfast. I might find it amusing, however, to hear what a friend of mine had for breakfast, though I also might roll my eyes at it (it depends on my mood!). I find Twitter the most useful for gathering news headlines and following links to interesting, amusing, and pertinent information online. The funniest thing about my Twitter usage is that I have yet to Tweet anything! But for me, it makes sense. I don’t use Twitter as a blog (I already have one of those), and I don’t use it as a running commentary on life (I have Facebook for that). I use it to gather information about what is going on in the world around me, so I don’t feel much of a need to say anything.
This is all a long-winded way of saying that everyone is certainly entitled to use Twitter as they will, and that making deliberate choices about who and what to follow does not necessarily render someone a “Twitter snob,” but rather someone who has made specific judgments about what information they choose to ingest. I think it’s important to make these choices; there’s only so much information we can ingest, and only so much time that we have to do so.
I think that this also hits on the question of the spiritual or sacramental quality of the mundane. Not every mundane moment in life is necessarily spiritual. Not every piece of information that is tweeted is meaningful to everyone. I think that making choices and drawing some boundaries helps to heighten the potential that we can find sacramental moments in the everyday.
Hey Adam!
I also have wondered what the point is of Twitter. Joel had Twitter way before I did, and I thought it was kind of silly to reduplicate what Facebook already does. I finally joined because he left the country and was only doing updates via his iTouch on Twitter (and Skyping me every once in a while…), and then decided I liked Twitter enough to stay on.
For me, I’m “friends” with a lot of people on Facebook who I don’t know very well (I only allow friends who I have an actual connection with, however), so although I may post status updates every once in a while, I don’t really want all those people knowing the little details of my daily life.
So on Twitter, I only allow “followers” who I trust and know well enough to let them in on what’s really going on with me. That means I have only, oh, 10 or 15 “followers,” but I like it better that way. It’s fun to hear what’s going on in their lives and to know that they’re connected to my life even when I don’t see them for a while. (Or in your case, when I don’t see you for some years…but we should change that, by the way! We want to come visit you guys!) I also follow NPR and some other organizations that let me know about news stuff, either global or in my faith community, and that’s an easier way to stay connected to news than anything else, for me anyway.
So am I a Twitter snob because I don’t accept “followers” who aren’t good friends? I don’t think so–I think I’m just using it for a particular purpose.
I like how you use lots of its different functions, but for me, all that other stuff isn’t as useful.
Twitter allows me to interact with people in a way that is just impossible for me in the real world.
I have found twitter & FB to be a wonderful tools for Narcissist. I just wonder if at judgment if God is going to pull up our twitter and facebook accounts.
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