All A-Twitter

It sounds like a plausible analogy. The person was being interviewed about text messaging and Twitter. She was asked if this might have a negative effect in human interaction. Her response compared it to what would have happened when the telephone came on the scene. People long ago, she stated, probably complained that not seeing somebody face to face would lessen the human interaction.

And for two seconds I believed it. Then I thought, "Didn't Marshall McLuhan say that the medium is the message?"

You could say that television is just radio with pictures, but that's not true. In the same way the affect of Twitter and instant text messaging is not the same as what happened when telephones came on the scene. Sure, some of the questions might be the same, but if McLuhan is right, the answers should be quite different.

What amazes me is how people have no problem writing the script of their life as it unfolds. You get this a lot on Facebook, too, but it is intensified on Twitter. You get the play-by-play of everything they choose to reveal. And it is broadcast to everyone that person chooses to allow to tell. Interesting.

Not quite like the telephone, is it? When I pick up the phone, I am speaking to a specific person, not broadcasting it to an audience.

You could say that writing this blog is even worse. Here I am expressing my thoughts to many people and I don't even know who is reading this. There is very little feedback. And while I stick my thoughts and emotions out there for anyone to see, I wonder from time to time if exposing my inner feelings does any good. Perhaps it is a waste of time. Why do I keep on writing, then? I enjoy writing. To be a better writer, I feel you have to write, so I keep at it.

So is Twitter ultimately good for society? I don't know. Like all technology, my suspicion is that it depends how you use it. My only concern is that we seem to be approaching a world that is becoming more and more like what George Orwell predicted. The other fear is that we are not sure what the real message of this medium is in the terms of McLuhan. Is it hot or is it cool?