Thoughts to be read worldwide
A question that nagged at my mind a few times these past months was what makes people use Twitter, WordPress and other such services.
Why blog? Why tweet? Why change status every day on Facebook?
My analysis is biased, as I favour blogs over Twitter pages and Facebook activity, but I might as well post my thoughts. Who knows, they might some day be read worldwide.
Twitter has an interesting item on its homepage: next to an explanation of what Twitter is, you get reasons why you should use Twitter.
Their list is the following:
Why? Because even basic updates are meaningful to family members, friends, or colleagues – especially when they’re timely.
- Eating soup? Research shows that moms want to know.
- Running late to a meeting? Your co-workers might find that useful.
- Partying? Your friends may want to join you.
Facebook’s own profile on the Facebook website states this:
Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected.
Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, [...] and learn more about the people they meet.
Blogger has this to say:
A blog is your easy-to-use website, where you can quickly post thoughts, interact with people, and more.
TypePad has a long list of reasons why people should blog, so here are some excerpts:
A blog is a simple, cost-effective way to create a professional online presence. [...]
A blog creates a conversation between you and the people who matter to you. [...]
A blog is a tremendous way to boost your search engine rankings. [...]
A blog delivers a huge impact for very little money. [...]
A blog allows you to take control of what you publish. [...]
A blog allows you to develop a position of thought leadership. [...]
A blog is a valuable business tool for collecting customer feedback. [...]
A blog creates a historical record of your content.
The rise of the so-called “Web 2.0″ websites has led to many more people (such as Peter Craddock, the anonymous writer of this post) crafting their own presence on the internet, and previously static personal websites became more dynamic, with content changing every few hours, days, weeks or months.
Some use one service exclusively, while others combine them (see for example Nathan Borror’s Playground Blues, where he mixes Tumblr blog posts with Twitter posts and Flickr photo additions).
Twitter has become adopted by hundreds of thousands (over a million users, albeit without indication of what Twitter considers to be a “user” [registered? active?]) as a means of sending updates to the world at any given moment. Tweets are usually just a few words, a couple of sentences at the most, and allow people to literally publish on the web thoughts as they come to them.
Why tweet, though?
I have a close friend to whom I send random thoughts by text message at least once a week, from existential questions to simple “Lunch tomorrow?” messages. The advantage is that I can tell her pretty much anything, and privacy is never really an issue. On the other hand, I can’t see myself writing half of those things on the internet.
A friend of mine uses Twitter to post only loopy messages, and thus Twitter becomes a way to escape reality for a moment. Another uses Twitter more intensively, because it allows him to keep people informed of what he is doing. Both uses are fine by me.
But do Twitter and the concept of “microblogging” not lead to an immediate satisfaction of urges?
Tweets, Facebook status updates and blog posts
When writing entries on my website, I like to make them substantial. It takes time and work to create a post, even if the result isn’t grand. I write, think, search arguments or elements, revise, …
If the initial motivation behind your blog post dies after two minutes, you have to keep reviving it (or you simply learn to start writing only that which interests you). There is no satisfaction of your desire to write the blog post until you hit the “Publish” button (and even then, I tend to re-read the whole post to make sure it makes sense and is properly written).
At the opposite of a post that takes ten-twenty minutes, even an hour to write, you have the tweet, which takes less than a minute.
It’s like having a Facebook status and changing it every few days/minutes/hours to reflect what you’re doing. You end up telling everyone you know exactly what you’re doing or thinking (especially on Facebook, where you build up a network of “friends” very fast, even without trying [I have only taken the initiative of adding one friend myself, out of a current 260 "friends"]).
Now, one cannot say that all Twitterers grow a problem relating to the satisfaction of urges or that all bloggers write long and thought-out blog entries. But isn’t the immediate satisfaction of urges problematic per se?
And why blog?
Ultimately, the basic reason for blogging is the same as for tweets: you want to make some of your thoughts available for the world to read.
In my case, though, there are considerations of content and literary quality that lead me to believe that blogging is more “for me” than twittering (and I hope that the posts reflect these concerns).
General considerations
Posting one’s thoughts on the internet seems to give us the possibility of satisfying one basic human need, the need to be/feel heard. Even people who do not speak much need to know that their occasional inputs are listened to. It might sometimes be an illusion, but by posting your thoughts on the web, you imagine that someone is bound to read them one day.
Let’s face it: if a person doesn’t even hope to be read, all potential reasons for posting one’s thoughts on the web disappear, save for the case where a person posts notes to remind him/herself. Even then, wouldn’t the person just use a notepad, real or virtual?
Blogging, microblogging and social networking is all ultimately about the “me” and the people gravitating around, and it all satisfies a thoroughly selfish desire.
Ah, what do I know, I’m just an occasional poster of my thoughts.
28 January 2009 at 05:48
That’s why I just post on a forum. You can still show people what you’re like, and be constructive at the same time. Win win.