Social stream of consciousness
This is year 2010. You, readers, are probably in your late teens or early twenties. We are the generation who have grown out from the books-and-toys childhood to the world where every entertainment is available on screens, thanks to the internet. Movies, games, books, resources, everything is within your clicking distance, guaranteed available at whatever situation you’re in thanks to smartphones and laptops. Fast forward 40 years and we’ll be telling our grandchildren stories about life before internet, where we have to watch TV or actually play outside with friends to have some fun. While the internet keeps us busy with new and increasingly creative ways to learn and entertain each day, our basic instinct of what to do with all the informative contents is to share it, showing the world what we know and what they should also know as the very function of the internet is to create a massive collective of information within communities. Nowadays, we have a growing tendency to share and share more, from what you learned today to what you eat this evening to what you are doing this very moment… everything. And the world wide web epitome of this brand new culture of sharing is obviously, none other than Twitter.
Three years ago I don’t give a damn about the spoiled milk in your fridge, and neither do you. But now, following an active Twitter user means I have readied myself to know how your cat behaves weirdly this morning, how you scored five successive strikes on tonight’s bowling game (I actually wish I could), or how you try to sound posh by using nine different languages in one tweet. The seemingly endless stream of information is getting more and more irksome each day, as also noted by my friend @tchvinkle in her post, and while her pet peeve is into spending too much time minding other people’s trivial business, mine revolves around how it’s getting too easy to read people like a book just from their tweets. People might say to not judge someone by their tweets, but for the people using Twitter’s definitive “What’s happening?” to update every 10 minutes, deducing traits is a no-brainer. While your behavior might not go along with your tweet, but what you update that very second is what you really think. That guy is a punctual whiner, possibly spoiled by his folks. This dude tries too hard to sound altruistic, yet updates every time he had done something good. That lady can’t live a day without shopping, definitely spoiled by her folks. This girl displays acute narcissism, thinking everyone’s interests revolve around her. There’s more coming from the timeline and these are just a few. I’m not saying this with a better-than-thou attitude, but yes, constant viewing of a timeline of collective whining is hardly bearable. Perhaps being less around Twitter is the solution and I’m working on it, because as I see it, Twitter has made me post here less frequently and much more condensed I couldn’t even write stuff longer than 500 words without being distracted. Microblogging is in no way equal to writing a real blog post that takes time and effort to make, and being able to write good is my sole aim for now. So now I’m off doing my best remembering the life before social network!
p.s. have a nice time in Holland, Bek! Hope I could go there some time soon.
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