Happy 5th Birthday, Twitter!

Following the theme of our readings for this week it bears mentioning that the seminal communications juggernaut better known as Twitter turned five today.  That's right Twitter is no longer a toddler and can be officially said to be out of it's infancy as now  it is literally old enough to enter kindergarten. But twitter is most unlike any other 5 year old I've ever met.

How so? Well, how many kindergartners do you know who have 140 million playmates? Or 4 billion dollar piggy banks?  Our readings have us studying the myriad ways that twitter is used as a communication tool. It seems that for as many twitter users that exist there are equally as many ways in which to use the tool. From the inane to the germane  - chances are there is a twitter hashtag for any given subject (or non-subject) and an invested group of followers driving trending.  I believe it is this universality that makes twitter so appealing and in the future will drive it's very sustainability.

What I find most fascinating about Twitter, however,  is an enigma, disguised as a conundrum - and that is the superficiality inherent in it's universality.  I believe this is what Sample was alluding to when he declared that Twitter is useless for making connections.  While I don't agree that connecting via Twitter is impossible -. scores of journalists and communications professionals would argue that's just not the case - I do believe that connections born on Twitter most often only go skin deep.  Twitter is a phenomenal communications tool which certainly possesses the potential to be a real conduit of human connection. However, even given all the many ways that we use the tool today, how many people can actually say that they have real relationships with their followers/followees? Or for that matter how many can say that they actually have "conversations" within the confines of the platform rather than broadcasting their own one way self interested or self serving blurbs? I mean what's with all of the brands who have been following me lately? I don't really think they're actually interested in what I have to say more than they're interested in selling me - and anyone who follows me - whatever it is that they sell.

What Sample deems a futility of connection carter calls an asymmetry.

User connections are made asymmetrically, so that we can begin the process of learning about others even without reciprocal engagement. The trending topics function semiotically as a signal to users that some issue, person or event is generating major interest in one of Twitter’s many communities. They’re also an implicit invitation for users to weigh in on the issues du jour. “Twitter is like the ticker tapes you see in Times Square,” says Halley Suitt, chief editor of Communispace. “It’s entertainment and it’s a voyeuristic medium.”

I believe Carter's definition is more accurate.  However I don't believe anyone would claim voyeurism breeds real life connections. Execept perhaps stalkers, that is.  Of course, it would be impossible to have actual reciprocal relationships with thousands of people simultaneously in real life, or really in any setting other than one like Twitter.  Hence Twitter's greatest strength is also it's inherent flaw. Hence the enigma...and the conundrum.

Anyway, these thoughts are probably beyond the grasp of a 5 year old. Even one as unique and gifted as Twitter. So Happy Birthday, little fella! Don't spend all your birthday money (that $4 billion valuation) in one place!

Doctor, I Think I Fractured My Attention Span!

It took me over four hours to complete the Linda Stone video. That's right four hours. Now you may be asking yourself how it is that it took an otherwise intelligent person more than four hours to complete a video that is exactly twenty-one minutes and fifty-two seconds long? Well, I'm kinda guilty of Stone's thesis. I think I have Continuous Partial Attention.  Although when one says it like that it sort of sounds like a diagnosis of a life threatening illness. What I mean to say is that it took me four hours to complete a twenty-two minute video because I paused it a gazillion times. Well maybe not an actual gazillion but several times anyway. Several times.

Now one may be wondering why it might be necessary to pause a twenty-two minute video more than once? An excellent question indeed. Well while watching the video I find myself surfing the web for interesting blog post ideas, monitoring CNN for nationwide election results, jotting notes for said blog posts, tweeting interesting and funny anecdotes from my day, checking my email for client inquiries, and generally fretting about my final class project. That's rather a lot to do, huh? I think Stone is certainly on to something in her analysis of the contemporary definition of multi-tasking as compared with the traditional definition.  All of the tasks that I described above require cognition. None of them are automated. Hence at some point it becomes necessary to pause one or two just to have the necessary brain capacity to focus, still partially, on the others. Hence four hours after I started the video I finally finished it.

I've seen several studies recently that conclude that those who hyper multi-task actually decrease their efficiency at completing the tasks they undertake successfully.  This NPR article details a French study that concluded that the human brain is ultimately set up to do no more than two tasks at a time. That's right, our frontal lobes max out at two. When the participants in the study were given a third task to complete researchers found that their accuracy suffered greatly over their initial performance when only two tasks had been assigned. So what does this mean for time starved, harried, multi-taskers like me. Well if I had time to write by hand it would be on the wall - slow down and focus.  As Stone so eloquently illustrates in her examination of our social evolution from a data economy to a wisdom economy society has sort of come full circle.  The information overload which currently faces today's workers and individuals begs for at least a partial return to simpler times.  Value added today means time added, as in how will this particular good or service make my life easier and give me more time?  Ok so maybe instead of hitting pause on the DVR I should force myself to hit the power button. Lesson learned. In fact I will no longer allow myself to hit any pause buttons anywhere any more for any reason. Hmm, I think that one may be a little harder. I'll keep working on it, anyway. Well, that's all for now, I must rush off as I have a million other things I need to get...

Just kidding! I am actually done with this particular post.