This article suggests more about Pemberton than it does many Twitter users... and, yes, I use it, not often, and primarily to keep up with some friends, family and colleagues who use it as judiciously as I do.
On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 12:38 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Times (London) - February 22, 2009
> <
> http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article5747308.ece
> >
>
> A load of Twitter
> Feel the need to tell everyone everything you're doing all of the time?
> Then tweeting is for you
> Andy Pemberton
>
> "Arse, poo and widdle." With this unholy trinity of coy expletives, Stephen
> Fry introduced us to the joys of Twitter earlier this month. Fry was stuck
> in a lift and posted a "tweet" about it. His naughty digital missive,
> together with a photo taken on a camera phone, put him at the vanguard of
> the latest social-networking phenomenon, which everyone from Hollywood to
> Wall Street is talking about.
>
> Launched in 2006, Twitter is the inescapable, hot tech product. It boasts
> 6m users — teeny compared to Facebook's 150m — but its audience has surged
> by more than 1,000% in the past year. Twitter's most famous advocate is
> Barack Obama, whose Twitter account has 265,970 followers, more than anyone
> else. Fry is the second most followed tweeter, with 174,924; celebrities
> such as Jonathan Ross, Shaquille O'Neal, Lance Armstrong, Tina Fey and
> Lindsay Lohan trail behind. ("Jesus Christ" is listed as having 33 accounts,
> by the way, while "The Devil" has 189. "Richard Dawkins" has three.)
>
> Right now, the 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?' "
>
> It's a fair question. What kind of person shares information with the world
> the minute they get it? And just who are the "followers" willing to tune
> into this rolling news service of the ego?
>
> 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."
>
> "We are the most narcissistic age ever," agrees Dr David Lewis, a cognitive
> neuropsychologist and director of research based at the University of
> Sussex. "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."
>
> For Alain de Botton, author of Status Anxiety and the forthcoming The
> Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, Twitter represents "a way of making sure you
> are permanently connected to somebody and somebody is permanently connected
> to you, proving that you are alive. It's like when a parent goes into a
> child's room to check the child is still breathing. It is a giant baby
> monitor."
>
> Is that why tweets are often so breathtakingly mundane? Recently, the rock
> star John Mayer posted a tweet that read: "Looking for my Mosely Tribes
> sunglasses." Who wants to tell the world that? "The primary fantasy for most
> people is that we can be as connected as we were in the womb, a situation of
> total closeness," says de Botton. "When people who are very close are
> talking, they 'twitter away': 'It's a bit dusty here' or 'There's a squirrel
> in the garden.' They don't say, 'What do you think of Descartes's second
> treatise?' It doesn't matter what people say on their tweets — it's not the
> point."
>
> "Tweets are really just a series of symbols," says Lewis. "The person
> writing it just wants to be in the forefront of your mind, nothing more."
> Which makes it very appealing to marketeers. Companies such as Starbucks
> have been quick to recognise the marketing potential of Twitter, and makers
> of the critically acclaimed American TV show Mad Men received a profile bump
> when fans, posing as characters, sent tweets to one another. Even think
> tanks such as the Institute for Public Policy Research have begun using
> twitter to publicise their activities. It's not hard to understand why
> people might follow these tweets. But why do 174,924 people "follow" Fry's
> every thought?
>
> "Receiving a tweet is like a friend whispering something in your ear," says
> de Botton. "We all want people to whisper secret messages to us. Children
> like to play 'I have a secret to tell you'. It's great fun, but what they
> say is often not very important."
>
> "To 'follow' someone is to have a fantasy of who this person you're
> following is, and you use it as a map reference or signpost to guide your
> own life because you are lost," says James. "I would guess that the typical
> profile of a 'follower' is someone who is young and who feels marginalised,
> empty and pointless. They don't have an inner life," he says.
>
> Jonathan Ross is a fan of Twitter for different reasons. He recently asked
> followers to nominate a word he could use in his Bafta script. He went with
> "salad" and dropped it in 45 minutes into the show. For him, using new
> technology confers status.
>
> "It makes us look young. And that is a high-status position in this
> society," says de Botton. "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. It's the equivalent of sending a postcard."
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