How tweet it is

Suddenly the Twitter ‘bitters’ or bashers seem to have disappeared and a wave of goodwill and seriousness has come around Twitter. This doesn’t mean that you have to like Twitter, or even feel guilty about pining for an earlier, simpler, pre-Twitter world. It simply means that anyone who ignores the vast socioeconomic impact that Twitter is already having around the world risks going the way of the luddites.

The skepticism or contempt of new technologies often occurs because the ultimate applications to which the devices are put are not apparent when they are introduced. Only when the real social benefits of a new technology manifest themselves do people stop being bitter. Something of the sort seems to be happening with Twitter. Initially, those in the know dismissed it as a juvenile, intrusive, preposterously inconsequential technology that made modern life even more atomized and annoying. This is not to say that oft-heard criticisms of Twitter are baseless. Without question, at least in its most common applications, the innovation seems to heighten the epidemic of frivolity and an almost pathological need to share which clearly does not need to be shared.

But is electronically mandated terseness necessarily bad? What is wrong with inciting people to resist bloviating on with some tired spiel that everyone has heard a million times before? In this sense, Twitter is the ultimate anti running your chatter-box device. Much against critics that it limits meaningful information in content, it cuts through the heart of the matter. In fact, one of the things that make Twitter so interesting - and a threat to social networking systems like Facebook – is that it cuts through all the malarkey that afflicts the more sophisticated networking sites. Stocks with suspect earnings are hammered because of information bits that first surface on twitter. News of political corruption and scandals spread like wild fire on Twitter. Twitter is also tremendously useful in directing tweeters and Twitterers to informative web sites, where the original tweet is amplified and explained.

But what about the flak that it encourages tweeters to share even the most trivial thought that passes through their tiny little heads? The Twitter pages of movie stars or sports celebrities tell you that there is precious little that is being tweeted for them my minions and flunkies and publicists that anyone in the real world needs to know. Counter to that is the argument that when Twitter is embraced by authors, philosophers, deep thinkers and luminaries, it will prove itself immensely useful in disseminating powerful and original thoughts and ideas. The 140-character limit can encompass lofty thoughts, clever apercus and blindingly illuminating kernels of wisdom quite concisely. And then, Twitter encourages those who have nothing to say to say it, or those who have nothing to share to share it. It also encourages those who should be silent to be verbose. At its worst, it hamstrings conversation, reduces complex thoughts to banalities and speeds the proliferation of trivia. It motivates people to take their eyes off the ball. It is ushering in a golden age of gibberish. How tweet it is!