I woke up this morning to some tweeting and like so many others, couldn’t help thinking to myself why Twitter, the 140 character limited instant messaging system, has gained such popularity. The first answer that came to mind was the pun, “I tweet, therefore I am”. I ran an Internet search on that phrase, and sure enough, plenty of others had the same thought. My search led me to the following observation offered by The Sunday London Times February 22, 2009
San Francisco-based company that owns Twitter is valued at $250m, even though, in start-up argot, it is “pre-revenue”. Its inventors, Biz Stone, 34 — who describes Twitter communication as “like a flock of birds choreographed in flight” — and Evan Williams, 36, recently rejected an offer from FaceBook to buy their company for $500m. Yet despite the big money and the enthusiasm swirling around his product, Williams (who also coined the term “blogger”) has admitted many are bewildered when they first encounter Twitter. “We’ve heard time and time again: ‘I really don’t get it — why would anyone use it?
I have devoted quite a few words in this blog to a discussion of a theory of knowledge and consciousness and it seems to me that Tweeting’s popularity should be explainable using that theory. This should also make it possible to draw some meaningful conclusions about the significance of Tweeting and what it might portend for the future of the human enterprise.
NYT columnist Maureen Dowd shared her thoughts on the subject in her column titled, “To Tweet or Not to Tweet” (another pun). She wrote of her interview with Biz Stone, ”I was here on a simple quest: curious to know if the inventors of Twitter were as annoying as their invention.”
….ME: Was there anything in your childhood that led you to want to destroy civilization as we know it?
BIZ: You mean enhance civilization, make it even better?
….ME: Have you thought about using even fewer than 140 characters?
BIZ: I’ve seen people twitter in haiku only. Twit-u. James Buck, the student who was thrown into an Egyptian prison, just wrote “Arrested.”
ME: I would rather be tied up to stakes in the Kalahari Desert, have honey poured over me and red ants eat out my eyes than open a Twitter account. Is there anything you can say to change my mind?
BIZ: Well, when you do find yourself in that position, you’re gonna want Twitter. You might want to type out the message “Help.”
Back to the London Times article in which the clinical psychologist Oliver James has his reservations.
“Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It’s a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity.”
And Dr David Lewis pronounces:
“We are the most narcissistic age ever…. Using Twitter suggests a level of insecurity whereby, unless people recognise you, you cease to exist. It may stave off insecurity in the short term, but it won’t cure it.”
And Alain de Botton, author of ‘Status Anxiety‘ opines:
“Perhaps closeness is not always possible, or desirable. Twitter gives us another option. It says: I want to be in contact with you, but not too much.”
The tendency to try and explain a phenomenon like Twitter from a psychological standpoint seems common sense, but there is another way to look at it that may provide a more powerful “systems” explanation. In my post, “Ants, Termites, and Bees, Oh My!” I explain that I regard humans as eusocial (completely and totally social) creatures. As individuals, they cannot come into existence alone and they cannot survive and prosper alone. Human beings are genetically compelled to interact with others in a process that is much like a jazz ensemble, in which the interplay of their relentless conversation creates a constantly emerging music of new knowledge by which they make their way in the world. Every conversation is propelled by some aim, spoken or unspoken—–a puzzle to be solved, a question, a problem, or challenge.
When seen in this way, we can ask ourselves if Twitter is a linguistic jazz ensemble?
The act of Tweeting meets the first condition in which we are compelled to communicate, but does it meet the second condition of interactivity in which our communication forms the basis of the responses of our fellow players? Is a Tweet just the sounding of a solo note resounding in the void, or is it part a greater creative process that moves individuals and groups of people forward toward better lives?
Twitter is a tool. Even the creators of the tool are unable to explain why it has gained such great popularity. It may be that Tweeting is merely a sad substitute for purposeful interaction, signaling only narcissism and the loneliness of the crowd, but such a conclusion is premature. Tweeting may become transformed by its users into much more than its originators imagined. It may become a new and powerful means by which humans work together to take, in the words of Victor Frankl:
“ … responsibility to find the right answer to (life’s) problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual”.
As Kurt Vonnegut said so often of the little bird, “Pooh tweet, pooh tweet. So it goes“.
