Watching the web

Are you all of a Twitter?

When poets talk of the birds twittering in the trees, a different picture is now evoked.

Imagine sparrows and starlings pecking away at laptops, telling the other birds who are ‘following them’ what they’re doing. Twittering or, more correctly, tweeting, reached critical mass a few months ago when Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross both decided to use Twitter. But what is it?

Twitter explained

Twitter is a social networking site. You register, say what you’re doing (e.g. I’m making a cup of tea/can’t find my keys/filing for bankruptcy), find other people that you know or have heard of and ‘follow them’. That means that you can see their status. This was clearly invented by someone under the age of 30, since anyone over that age would stand with their hands on their hips and say, ‘What is the point of that?’ It seems pointless, but, like many pointless things, it’s extremely popular.

What is this web-based fad doing and showing us about ourselves? It demonstrates a longing for community and friendship. Technology is getting smaller, cheaper and more convenient. This means that we can do more and more things by ourselves. We don’t need to go into a bank with online banking. We don’t need to see our colleagues when we can work from home. We don’t need to fly across the world for meetings when we have video-conferencing. But we still crave a connection with others.

We crave that connection because we are relational. And we are relational because God is relational, in communion with himself in the Trinity and with us. And we are in his image. It should be no surprise, then, that when a space mission is finally sent to Mars, the first thing they will do when they arrive is tell us how they are, and what they’re up to. E.g. ‘Chip Johnson is… on Mars! LOL. But it’s way hot :-(’

Real friends?

Are online friends really friends? Unlike Facebook, Twitter contacts are called followers. You can follow people you know personally, like your best mate, and others that you know from TV, like Stephen Fry. It can be rather thrilling to hear about what Britain’s best-known polymath is up to. Likewise, knowing what your real friends are doing can be intriguing, and a good conversation starter when you see them next.

The knowledge that people you know are keeping tabs on you throughout the day, however, presents a couple of dangers. The first is, surprisingly, narcissism. This is the same trap that bloggers can fall into; the assumption that ‘my people need me’. We inflate our sense of self-importance and consider ourselves to be something of a celebrity. Scratch beneath the surface and you will discover that this is not self-importance, but an ungodly and ugly craving for attention and approval.

Persona development

The second danger is more subtle, but potentially just as corrosive. As one posts updates of oneself and one’s life, one can feel the need to perform or develop a ‘persona’, a neater, more affable or attractive version of oneself. How we distort ourselves will depend on our own character and tastes. We may wish to present our lives as if we were living in a Peanuts cartoon or an episode of Scrubs — as we lurch from crisis to crisis. For those of us who tweet, or use Facebook, it is worth considering what kind of person we are presenting. Is it the real us? There is no virtue in being awkwardly honest and indiscreet, but equally to present ourselves as anything other than a work in progress is a denial of who we really are.

More likely, this whole discussion has made you conclude that Twitter really is for the birds.

James Cary

Request Free Sample

<< August 2009 >>