Class 5 catchup--Twitter

How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live

A) Twitter is creating new, exciting opportunities for people to communicate with each other; there is poignant value in connecting to people in real time.

B) I liked when Johnson told a story of a valuable experience that he has had that would not have been possible if it hadn’t been for Twitter. Their educational discussion was enriched not only by the active participants in the room, but with the general public. We now have a window into the universal living room of America and the world for that matter. We can reassure our thoughts and feelings with the entire Twittersphere when something happens in real time. We are no longer “shattered into a million isolation booths,” we can revel and react with fellow active Twitizens! And while many of the Tweets would be juvenile and irrelevant, inherently, as Johnson points out, there are some that are “moving, witty, observant, and subversive.” We can make a difference in 140 characters. I also agreed with the comparisons between Google searching and Tweets. It may be useful to find the top-hit of a given search query; however, it does not often present the most current, cutting-edge, or interesting information. You can send a question out to your 50 Twitter friends and get real, solid advice from the people you know and care about.

I found some things in the article skeptical or causing problem rather than creating solutions. The educational conference had an active and ongoing Tweet blog, which as I said earlier opens new opportunities and can bring more people’s ideas and opinions to the forefront. However, it can also detach members from the conversation at hand. It is completely distracting to look at a phone and Tweet while you are engaging in a heated, complex discussion about something such as education. I think attention would shift quickly from the in-room dialogue to the running on-screen Twitterworld. Why don’t we just sit around and Tweet all day instead of talking? I also was skeptical of the discussion about end-user innovation. While Twitter opens up new opportunities to interact in real time, it also detracts from many of the things in life that aren’t so completely hyperconnected. It can be obsessive and can drag people away from learning for themselves independently and shaping their own ideals.