Men, so the received wisdom goes, are not well-suited to multi-tasking. And as a man who sometimes experiences difficulty even in single-tasking, following a hashtag on TwitterFall during a live TV or radio broadcast can prove nightmarish, to say the least.
Tonight, Radio 4′s Moral Maze was discussing Twitter, and in particular, its place in political debate. Listeners were being asked to contribute, in real time, via the hashtag #moralmaze.
As an avid – if occasionally somewhat mundane – Twitterer, I steeled myself for a half-hour burst of attempting to do two things at once. It is for this reason that my reminiscences of the programme itself may be a little cloudy. Well, that and a tasty drop of Primitivo.
For all the programme’s flaws – most pertinently that a number of the panellists didn’t appear properly to understand Twitter – it got me thinking about this medium in more depth than I have cared to think on it before. Some of my thoughts may have been triggered by the contributors to the #moralmaze hashtag, who are too various to mention, so if I inadvertently steal your idea, then please accept my humble apologies. Not all of these areas were discussed in the radio programme, and this post aims to express my own views, not to act as a summary of the broadcast.
Does Twitter encourage mob tactics?
The short format of the messages can – especially, in my experience, after a couple of pints of real ale – lead to a greater spontaneity in commentary. This may, on occasion, trigger knee-jerk reactions and hollow sentiments. However, personal experience also suggests that, when the part of my brain tasked with espousing opinions is not lubricated with alcohol, the 140-character limit has quite the reverse effect. The hidden art of tweeting is in finding suitably succinct ways of expressing relatively complex and meaningful thoughts. For me, it happens with varying degrees of success.
The best tweets will not be devoid of useful expression; on the contrary, that expression will be highly concentrated. If reading a good blog post is like drinking a tall Americano, then digesting a carefully-crafted tweet is equivalent to downing a shot of espresso.
The concept of trending topics and the viral nature of retweets might have the effect of magnifying the popular opinion while drowning out the opposing view; but again, how does that differ from ordinary conversation?
Ultimately, you have to remember that Twitter users are not a single entity; they are a collection of individuals. They have different opinions, different tastes and different modes of expression. They are all (barring, possibly, the odd spammer) sentient human beings, capable of rational thought. Twitter’s short message format gives everyone the opportunity to articulate their thoughts, without needing to be a master of the written word. And what could be more democratic than that?
Is it possible to express a serious point in 140 characters?
See above. It’s worth noting additionally that the 140-character limit applies only to individual tweets. Very often, the context will be spread across a number of different messages, be it @ replies or a series of contributions to a trending topic.
And now for something completely different…
What should we, as Twitterers, make of the fact that we’re relying so heavily on a single commercial entity for the storage and dissemination of our thoughts? Is it wise to let one company monopolise this arena? Is there an argument for agreeing open standards in online short-messaging protocols?
Follow me on Twitter: @msgrocock.