I’ve spent the last few months in idle thought about facebook and twitter status updates. I’ve played with the format, befriended a legion on facebook, followed more on twitter. I created accounts on twitter just to see what happens when I do something under a veil of anonymity.
What did I learn? I’ve seen the horrors that are men’s souls…
We are all Stuart Smalley on facebook
I started to look at the updates my friends made. I’ll admit I’m a nerd: I pulled out a piece of paper and created a list of update categories and counted how many times friends updated in each category.
This had a downside. As my list of friends grew, I got status update numbness. Even if you are my best friend, I do not care if:
- You are eating at a restaurant. Tell me if you just gave somebody the Heimlich Maneuver.
- You are waiting for a plane or are sitting on one. Tell me if you are landing a plane after an exciting fight with terrorists.
- You are bored/frustrated in traffic or at work. We all are.
- You have a cryptic update that says something like “I understand it all. Why didn’t I see this before?”. Don’t make me ask, you tease. If it’s profound, don’t hoard the karma. If you’re just being dramatic, talk to the hand.
I stopped counting updates-by-category after a few days because I had to ask: Why do we put this stuff into writing?
My guess: These are the things that constitute most of our thoughts. All of us have that little voice that tells us that we are the center of the universe. Now, we have a way to tell everybody.
Aren’t these updates like saying “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”
Today, Everybody Gets a Bumpersticker
With twitter, I was confused yet interested in the challenge that a 140 character update poses. What can I say (that isn’t a Stuart Smalley joke) in that short a space?
Once past the obligatory status update that said “I’m sitting on the toilet reading GQ”, I had to figure out a serious reason to update. I’m not a company or some public figure who is brand building. I’m just a guy. What should I say?
The problem slowly emerged. If I try to say anything profound, it is bumperstickerized. (There’s my new word for 2009.) Twitter bumperstickerizes everything because:
- Messages need to be extremely short, no matter how complicated the idea you want to express.
- Messages pass through your consciousness very quickly, either in a stream of tweets or on the bumpers of moving cars.
- Even the most creative messages are going to get old as the sticker shows up on more cars or as people ‘retweet’ the message.
- Neither can provide you with any trust. You wouldn’t pick a doctor who gave patients bumper stickers. I doubt we’ll see a day where doctors twitter to get patients.
The analogy breaks down. Feel free to poke holes in it. I won’t defend it. I’m pointing at the similarity between the two: the way that the limited format forces users or consumers of the medium to contort to fit in the given space.
10 Comments
I usually use the status updates to either do a mass update on stuff Liam is doing or to rant and get it out.
The public figures I follow serve the same purpose as RSS feeds–largely interesting links & tidbits of informations.
Friends & family, specific posts aren’t necessarily interesting, but overall flow of info provides a sense of where/how they are.
Also, I’m concerned about how many of my updates fall into the category of “the Arcade Fire sucks.”
Pete: Please note, this is not facebook or twitter. You can use more than 140 characters in your comments.
For both: I agree that there are updates I will always read, for family and close friends. However, the updates from the several score of acquaintances I have in each application get tedious because while I like the people, I just don’t know them well enough to understand or care…
I’ve been having parallel thoughts but I haven’t gone as far as you with the experiment. I doubt I’ll go onto Twitter.
Facebook and Twitter are, among other things, really busy inboxes. The activity allows us to feel like we’re accomplishing something. However, in many cases, I suspect there’s little to no thought put into either posting or reading the status updates. To write is human; to edit, divine. Etc.
i like this experiment and analysis. twitter and facebook give people the arena to be narcissistic and self serving, but in a way that isn’t enitrely out of bounds or considered creepy in this fast food culture.
i think theres beauty in simplicity. simplicity being instant gratification, anyway.
for my part, i think facebook and twitter has replaced my mass texting habit. when theres alot of options, its fun to abuse the priviledge, no?
Cake (the band) has a song with sampled audio from a source I have yet to find. The sample says, “Man is born… man lives… man dies. … and it’s all vanity.”
That one got me thinking. Is there anything we do as humans that would not in some way be considered vanity? Are we really that self-centered as a species? Is there anything I do in my life that is not is some way tied back to human vanity? Is there true universal ‘art’ or is our ‘art’ just the pinnacle of human vanity?
Is it all vanity? Narcissistic turtles ‘all the way down’?
Our beliefs are human-centric and we live our lives for ourselves. We anthropomorphize. We say ‘we’ and mean the human race when we say it. Even when we site altruistic acts, those that benefit are typically future generations of humans.
Perhaps Twitter and Facebook are just the latest technical skins on the same social interactions and deep rooted behaviors.
We are social gregarious creatures that like to segment off into groups. At some level we still seem tribal. We seek inclusion and believe group membership is an important attribute in what we call our identity.
Ask someone to describe themselves and they may start by telling you about what they do, but more than likely they will instead tell you where they work (my work tribe), tell you about how they are related to others (I am a father, son, sister, mother… etc), or they will tell you about other groups they consider themselves a part of.
Though Facebook and Twitter posts may seem vapid, I think they install in all of us a sense of inclusion. Not that we are having a conversation with anyone in particular, but the way nodding at someone across the room at a crowded party keeps social ties a little bit stronger. “Did you talk to Mark at the party?” – “No, but I saw him there…”
Yes, we all see ourselves as the center of our own universes, but we always have. Facebook and Twitter are just new tools. If it were not for these we would be at a dinner party, sewing circle, water cooler, social club, camp fire or bar stool.
I imagine if Facebook and Twitter were to collapse, you would see an uptick in other social activities. People would find some other way to feel included and connected.
We seem to have a deep seated need to tell stories about ourselves while sitting around the fire — and listen while others tell theirs. These are just the new sticks we rub together.
…then again. I just read a story about someone that built an office chair with an Adrino module and wifi that automatically tweets when he farts, so like every other tool it can be used in extreme and (literally) ad nauseam.
Some things should just not be shared around the fire…
I have had a Facebook page for almost a year now and I have posted my status about 4 time maybe and once was to tell people when my band was playing. I don’t get the people that post I just woke up and I’m drinking coffee? No your not you posting your status on Facebook. I don;t get Twitter. The only place I find Twitter useful is on CNN’s Rick Sanchez show. I feel that there nothing I’m doing that so important that I need to tell everyone what I’m doing.
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