The Social Life of Twitter

The recently completed annual Urban Market Research survey, compiled by the Australian youth marketing agency, Lifelounge, found an increase in 16-30 year olds who have had enough of chatting online with friends. Instead, it is claimed, they want to spend more face-to-face time with them. This is believed to be a result of the current global recession.

The CEO of Lifelounge, referring to the youth of Australia, was quoted: "And they want more connections with their friends that aren't digital, that are tangible. They're starting to question the authenticity of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter."

In times of economic upheaval, members of an affected society are inevitably forced to reassess the way they are living. Items purchased that were once considered necessary are dropped by the wayside; activities that were a de facto part of one's routine are examined anew. The Great Recession, through which the world is currently suffering, is no different.

According to the aforementioned study, the recent, long-term trend of the youth, including teenagers, conducting one's social life via technology may finally be subsiding. Despite the overwhelming publicity garnered by Twitter and Facebook, there is nothing new about technology being used to maintain one's connections with others; the telephone is a primary example.

As both the fixed and variable costs of telephone service dropped in the 1970s and 1980s, the stereotype of the chatty teenager spending hours on calls with his or her friends became a snapshot of one's formative years. An argument can be made, however, that the telephone did not take the place of face-to-face contact, but rather augmented it. Long-distance calls were still expensive for most families, so contact was primarily confined to those one would see on a daily basis anyway.

The advent of email in the general population starting in the late 1990s provided another method to stay in touch with one's friends and loved ones. It's lack of instant communication, though, did not substantially change relationship dynamics. It did, however, allow friendships over great distances to be promulgated, something not yet available with the telephone.

Finally, with the introduction of instant messaging, texting, Facebook, and now Twitter, technology has become an integral aspect of relationships as opposed to simply a tool to communicate. The benefits of instant communication without the etiquette required on telephone calls now allow a connection with a greater number of people albeit usually one of a shallow nature.

The interesting aspect of the Lifelounge study is that teenagers are reverting to a behavior that they never embodied. Unlike an adult who can refer to past recessions as a reference and adjust their behavior accordingly, teenagers have less of a history upon which to draw.

But, perhaps spurred on my the sudden belt-tightening of this deep recession, the youth are discovering what is really important in life -- money can come and go, most often out of one's control, but true friendships can weather any storm. And if both ends of a friendship live near one another, why spend so much time in the exchange of electrons when a face-to-face encounter can mean so much more? Maybe this jump to in-person communication will be looked at as the new marker of adulthood and maturity.

Twitter: Comfortably Dumb

Dr. Tracy Alloway, from the University of Stirling in Scotland, claims that his research shows that using Twitter "diminishes intelligence." Specifically, she says that it weakens "working memory," which is the ability to remember information and to subsequently use it. Dr. Alloway also claims that working memory is far more important to success and happiness than one's IQ measurement.

''On Twitter you receive an endless stream of information, but it's also very succinct,'' said Dr. Alloway. ''You don't have to process that information. Your attention span is being reduced and you're not engaging your brain and improving nerve connections.''

Photo Credit: New Line CinemaWith the relentless strides made in technology over the last few generations, the flow and dissemination of information has increased exponentially. A distinction, however, needs to be made. A well-informed public does not necessarily indicate one that is better educated as the study by Dr. Alloway has found. Increasingly, the quality of information and its incessant assault on our senses render the general public less capable of knowledgeable decision making. This is epitomized by Twitter, but in reality, has manifested itself across various media as well.

Newspapers had been the primary source of news for almost two centuries, ever since the advent of affordable printing and distribution. While there are countless examples of sensationalism in print over the years, generally speaking, the daily newspaper provided the real estate to explore issues in-depth by educated and accredited journalists. Today, in a trend sparked by The USA Today and accelerated across the landscape due to the cost of newsprint, articles and essays are shortened with catchy pull quotes now the norm. Outside of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and a few other stalwarts, reasoned analysis has become harder to find in this medium.

The situation is similar with magazines, particularly the newsweeklies. In the past, Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report provided perspective on the events from the previous seven days. It enabled both the authors of its articles and its readers to take a step back and look anew at issues with, perhaps, a diminished amount of emotion and more nuance. Now, in an age where the daily newspaper is considered outdated, the newsweekly has become merely a shadow of what it once was. The quality of coverage of the most important issues of today has dropped along with their circulation numbers.

Television news, never a bastion of reasoned analysis, nonetheless used to offer a more educated take on daily events. Anchorpersons and television reporters were actually considered journalists, a term many would now use accompanied by a wink or a smirk. There are exceptions such as "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" and "60 Minutes", but their audiences are increasingly older with the more recent generations hardly paying them any mind. One wonders if Edward R. Murrow would be telegenic enough in this day and age to secure any programming time.

News sources, if they can be described as such, on the World Wide Web continue down the road of the ever-shortening sound bite. The same media outlets referenced above now disseminate much of their news gathering through Twitter, providing a constant flow of information, usually condensed and hardly fact-checked. It is up to the general public to regard information gleaned from such sources with ever-increasing skepticism. Otherwise, public policy debates, such as the current one over health care, will be resolved, not based upon the most educated reasoning, but by arguments that are well-suited to 140 characters or less.

Twitter Jumps the Snark

Last week, The New York Times reported on the story of Daryl Eisenberg, a casting director who was conducting auditions for "Gay Bride of Frankenstein," which will be part of the New York Musical Theater Festival this fall. While doing so, she issued tweets in real time to her 1,800-plus followers about those auditioning before her. A sample follows:

If we wanted to hear it in a different way, don't worry, we'll ask.

If you are going to sing about getting on your knees, might as well do it and crawl toward us...right?

Perhaps anticipating criticism for her unvarnished opinions, she issued a preemptive tweet:

There is NO rule/guideline against Twitter/Facebook/MySpace/Friendster. Freedom of speech. Ever heard of it?

After criticism from the Actors' Equity Association, the union that represents theater performers, that such a use of Twitter was inappropriate, Ms. Esienberg had a change of heart. She reported that there would be no more tweets coming from the audition room.

Since its inception, one of the most common complaints about Twitter has been the banal nature of its content. The average person announcing what he or she is having for dinner or what was watched on TV may not make compelling reading, but is, by nature, benign and not threatening. A growing number, however, use Twitter to grind their axes or to state caustic opinions about others. The aforementioned episode of Ms. Eisenberg is just one recent example.

In person, Ms. Eisenberg most likely didn't have the desire to break etiquette and confront the auditioning actors with these comments. But with Twitter, the ease of communication and its de facto broadcast ability have proven an irresistible temptation for many to say things behind a digital veil that would otherwise go unspoken. Someone who would normally be polite in person instead heeds the siren call of snark, a word defined by Urban Dictionary as a combination of "snide" and "remark" that also has a connotation of the unwarranted and nasty criticism of others.

This is an extreme example of what can be called the "Coti Law of Snark," named for the author of this essay in a moment of egotistical weakness. This states that there is a positive correlation between the amount of snark a message can contain and three factors: the ease of communication, the number of people to whom one is communicating, and the degree of anonymity provided. Depending on how these factors interact likely signals the snark potential of one's message.

Ease of Communication
The simpler it is to convey one's message, the less likely that any serious thought was given to its content. Thus, language that may later be considered regrettable ends up making its way into public discourse due to the lack of preparation required by that medium.

Audience Size
The greater the number of people to whom the message is intended, the more likely one will feel the pressure to perform or impress. Because, when communicating to a larger audience, whether in person or online, there is a sense that the message needs to be embellished with inappropriate content to hold the listeners' attention or to keep their loyalty.

Anonymity
The more one can preserve his or her anonymity when delivering a message, the more likely that snark at some point will be conveyed. Being able to say things without attribution allows the freedom to say what's on one's mind without significant consequence.

So how do these factors interact with one another over different methods of communication? What follows is a table with the relative rankings of each factor on a scale of one to three with the higher numbers representing more of that particular attribute.

Letter
Because of the time it takes time to write down one's thoughts, address the envelope, and deliver it to post, a letter is a poor conduit of snark. The time invested in a letter most often lends itself to more reasoned speech as it is almost always addressed to an individual and has little or no anonymity.

Email
This medium can encompass many points on the spectrum. An email composed quickly and sent to a group list has the capacity to contain snark. But one must pause momentarily to fill in to whom it is being sent as well as the subject line, which is perhaps enough time to re-gather his or her thoughts and to reconsider the content before sending it along. Interestingly, replies to emails are more susceptible to snarky and regrettable commentary simply because it doesn't require any fields to complete -- it's message can be sent almost instantaneously.

Text Message/Face-to-Face/Phone
Speaking to another individual, whether in person or by phone or by text message, occupies a snarky middle ground. The ease of communication is great, but there is only a specific person to whom one is speaking and there is no anonymity. The potential for snark is there, but it is generally limited and requires the listener's cooperation.

Speech
When giving a speech to an audience, there isn't any anonymity and one usually must make some preparation as to what will be said. But there is an element of performance when speaking to groups -- the attention of those to whom one is speaking demands constantly to be sated. The chances of an off-the-cuff remark or an inopportune attempt at humor increases significantly.

Twitter
Once the application used to issue a tweet is up and running, sharing one's opinion with others is as simple as typing and pressing the ENTER key. This is the worst of both worlds: a message is easily composed and sent, and the number of people who have the opportunity to read said message can number in the thousands thus requiring a "performance." At first glance, there doesn't seem to be any anonymity. After all, followers know from whose account the tweets are emanating. But the connection is tenuous: someone who has more than 1,800 followers like Ms. Eisenberg obviously doesn't know most of them at all and vice versa.

The larger issue, regardless of the medium we use to communicate, is simply remembering the necessity to respect one another both in words and deeds. This is not to say that criticism or harsh commentary directed at others do not have their place. Rather, it comes down to intent. Is the message aiming for a cheap laugh at another's expense? Is it a sign of insecurity that someone else must be degraded to elevate the stature of oneself? To paraphrase Shakespeare, the fault lies not in Twitter, but in ourselves.