Thursday, November 9, 2017

Why I Hate Twitter (and other thoughts on Social Media)

Social media is ubiquitous.  Human beings are social animals, so it is logical that social media serves a purpose at some basic level of human need.  But with so many different forms available and the distractions growing exponentially, perhaps it is useful to take a close look at social media and understand what it accomplishes and what it may indeed damage in our human social fabric.

In the beginning, there was letter writing.  This was the original social media. Before letter writing the only way to interact with another human being was to engage them verbally, face-to-face.  Letter writing probably emerged as a way to communicate when people were not close enough to meet.  But as time progressed, writing a letter became something more than just a substitute for a conversation – it became a way of expressing one’s thoughts more profoundly and preserving them.

Letter writing required time and effort – finding pen (or quill) and paper, addressing some form of envelope or package, and interacting with some form of letter carrier system.  Thus, a letter was generally not simply a short note, but rather a thoughtful short (or even long) essay.  After all, every letter had the possibility of permanence, of being a legacy of some sort. Moreover, the number of letters one could generate was relatively limited, and it seemed prudent to avoid wasting one’s energy on frivolous or meaningless output.

When you are speaking in real-time with another person there is no opportunity to carefully consider the topics at hand and employ all of one’s logical and emotional faculties in crafting responses.  There is simply not enough time.  A letter allows one the time and distance to explore an idea, sorting and weighing all of its components and antecedents, and finding the best way to articulate the result.

So letters became a way for people to interact with some depth, and we have volumes of historical letters – love letters, philosophical letters, letters of scientific inquiry, letters of conviction, humorous letters.  These inform much of the history of the human race.  They are a wonderful testament to the inventiveness and profundity of the human spirit.

But once the computer entered into our lives, the letter was soon replaced by email.  With the logistical overhead now virtually eliminated (no paper, no envelope, no stamp, etc.), the nature of this ‘letter’ changed dramatically.  A few words or a phrase could be typed and fired off with minimal effort. Email took away the motivation to carefully nurture thoughts and emotions before committing them to pen and paper.  It resulted in an exponential growth of remote, indirect communication, but it also cheapened it.

An email has no aura of permanence, even though it can of course be preserved and is occasionally a very embarrassing or damning piece of evidence.  Its ephemeral nature and ease of composition allows us to indulge our laziness.  We lose the discipline of organized thought and careful word crafting.  Email is generally a throwaway.

With the rapidity that has characterized this age of information, email soon spawned many new digital children –  initially texting and various forms of chatting through messenger services, and later the plethora of social media that now inhabit our personal devices – facebook, twitter, youtube, linkedin, snapchat, instagram and many others.

Many of these social media involve a different type of social interaction than traditional letter writing or even email.  Facebook, youtube, snapchat and Instagram all are primarily photo and video sharing, with some comments, humor and messages tossed in.  To some extent, these replace and extend the old social custom of inviting friends over to see your vacation slide show or home movies.  It is interesting to recall how painful these episodes were and how often they were ridiculed, yet we now willingly, or let us say, addictively, subject ourselves to an endless parade of photos, memes and videos day and night.

Much could be written about whether the proliferation of these photos and videos and their subliminal messages and ‘likes’ enhances our friendships, or about its effect on our self-image or happiness.  To the extent that these media allow us to maintain relationships or re-discover them, they offer some benefit.  But do we really want to immerse ourselves superficially in so many outside lives – voyeuristically participating but not truly sharing any of these experiences?   I have read studies that indicate that the addictive nature of facebook and other similar social media leads to depression and insecurity, as we find ourselves confronted with the dream world of our peers that often overshadows our own mundane existence.

But to me, the worst offender in the world of social media is twitter.  This form of social media is the lowest common denominator, the ultimate sound bite, the catalyst and amplifier of rage, indignation, spite, pretension, and mockery.  As opposed to a sincere, careful attempt to address an issue or develop an idea through an essay, article or blog, a tweet is a loose cannon, a reflexive and trivial missive, a cynical ploy to get views and provoke responses.  It does not seek to be thoughtful or erudite, only perhaps clever and provocative.

For politicians and celebrities of all stripes, twitter is another way to stroke one’s ego – the very thought that thousands or even millions of people hang on your every word, however banal and self-serving, is intoxicating.  Who are the legions of followers? Do they have so little of substance in their own lives that they must grovel in the twitter feed of potentates like peasants at a coronation?

And then there is the ‘fake news’ and the fantasies, conspiracies and hysteria that seep through social media like poison gas across a battlefield, sinking deep into the neurotic brain tissue of the masses and destroying all rational thought and analysis.  Twitter is the ultimate tool of the demagogues and their henchmen.  One has only to look at the corrosive effect of our tweeter-in-chief to understand that twitter is more foe than friend.

Social media is the modern Pandora’s box, the genie that will never, ever be stuffed back into its bottle.  It is, in my view, a recipe of one part goodness for five parts woe.  Is it not better to nurture a small number of deep social relationships than a surfeit of shallow ones?  At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly and like a sad voice crying in the wilderness, I say the arrival of the social media panoply is not cause for celebration, but rather a warning bell for our society, our relationships and our future. 


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