Thursday, August 13, 2009

Careful with that Tweet, Eugene

I often feel cast as an evangelist for Twitter for the simple act of defending it to people are so remarkably hostile to it. Inevitably, its critics say that they don't care what someone had for breakfast, dismissing its triviality. Evidently, the worst use of the tool invalidates it entirely, which doesn't make any sense. We don't assume cars are bad because drunks hit people with them, or that computers are bad because people do all sorts of creepy and disturbing things with them. If the poor use of an object or technology marks it as worthless and dismissable, there's little that we've developed that can stand the test. Fire? Bad.

1 comment:

Leigh C. said...

Actually, the best advertisement for Twitter might well be that of a voice from the past, aka John Quincy Adams' diary entries from a trip to Russia he'd taken in the early nineteenth century. My MIL went gaga over Twitter precisely because of that project she'd heard the Massachusetts Historical Society was doing.

I guess everyone has to reach their own personal threshold on the usefulness of any technology in their lives. Until that has been reached, there will be a lot of hot air expended on why certain individuals can't or won't bring themselves to at least check out Twitter.