The status updates are hits. The arguments/discussions back and forth are more hits. The sometimes jittery unstable response times - where people are constantly at it, then go away - reinforces the desire for a hit. Like a bad boyfriend or girlfriend who calls you all the time, then leaves you cold for a bit. You love them even more.
It's something you do during work and during spots of time when you are waiting for a bus, in a meeting, on a train, in an elevator, when you want to avoid conversation with real people in your life or at awkward social situations.
You don't have to think hard to engage, you can drop the info quickly in between times (multi-tasking), and you can say inflammatory things and easily walk away from it with the excuse, "140 characters, man. It's not the place for a book. sheesh!"
The rest of the time, it's fulfilling people's need for superficial connections to ease the burden of the requirements of the more intimate ones. Someone wrote a paper recently calling it a form of phatic speech.
At 12:50 PM 5/1/2013, Wojtek S wrote:
>Joanna: "I so don't understand the appeal of Twitter."
>
>[WS:] I think I understand it, but I do not find it very appealing. It is
>all about "following" - especially of celebrity figures. This is what
>groupies do - they religiously follow celebrities and catch glimpses of
>their lives. Twitter provides ample and easily accessible supply of those.
> Other than that, it is just glorified texting.
>
>I do not find it very appealing because it is very difficult to say
>anything of substance or track a conversation, and I sincerely detest the
>celebrity culture.
>
>Wojtek
>
>
>On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 12:35 PM, <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > I so don't understand the appeal of Twitter.
> >
> > Joanna
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > Many happy returns (in a sense) to both.
> >
> >
> > On May 1, 2013, at 9:29 AM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Happy 15th birthday to lbo-talk (and to Lou Proyect's Marxmail, coeval
> > with this list). It's not as busy a thing as it once was, but 15 years is
> > durable for a listserv, especially in the Twitter era.
> > > ___________________________________
> > > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
> >
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>
>
>
>--
>Wojtek
>
>"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."
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