--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine <salsunsh...@...> wrote: > > I'm having trouble figuring out why this is so popular... > all it looks like to me is people posting links with a > short blurb. I don't see how anyone finds that addicting. > I can see how it could be useful as an information > exchange, but for social networking it would seem > to be seriously limited. What am I missing?
I think that the article I posted from Slate on "Seeking" explains a lot of the appeal. It's a technology that appeals to and caters to those who like pushing buttons and getting instant feedback, the same way that rats press the button to get a food pellet or a jolt of electricity in their brains. http://www.slate.com/id/2224932/ I'm not convinced it's a positive phenomenon. Anything that so many people can become so addicted to so quickly is a drug, even if it's a computer drug and not a chemical one. One of the biggest drugs going these days is the "fear of being out of touch." Twitter assuages that fear. It would never appeal to me because I purpose- fully stay "out of touch" as much as possible. I pride myself on never having had a beeper, and never having to give my mobile phone number to anyone I don't want to, including the companies I work for. As for "staying on top of the News," that seems like an exercise in folly to me, an impossible task. All in all, never having been attracted to Twitter in the least, whenever I hear the term I think of Doonesbury's Roland Hedley, Jr., the war correspondent who has nothing to say but tweets compulsively anyway. "Eating a felafel in Baghad...thought you'd want to know." :-)
