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With text messaging, twitter and social networking isn’t it too much? Do we need to stop watering things down to 140 characters and ‘get real’?
Sure, some people twitter inanities but there’s also communities of thought that share resources (via embedded links) to rapidly progress a conversation. Nobody is forcing you to Tweet, just as no-one forces you to watch TV or eat cheese. It’s a mode of conversation that suits some people and not others, just as e-mail and singing in a choir. You can turn it off. It’ll be there tomorrow if you need it.
Nobody is forcing you to Twitter, just as no-one forces you to watch TV or eat cheese.
I find people tend to worry that new technologies will usurp our values and destroy long-held and familiar ways of interacting. First, only you can let go of your values and second, last time I checked, the printing press, radio and The Daily Show are all still with us. Socrates worried that the invention of writing would ruin our intellect and memories, and I’ve only found that momentarily true after reading certain political memoirs.
You’re connected when you want to be connected and you water things down only if you want to water them down. Interconnectedness, on balance (and taking into account all its annoyances), is a good thing.
