A Response to Clive Thompson

After reading what Mr. Thompson has to say concerning how tweets and texts affect long-term meditation on ideas, I'm not so sure I agree with him fully. Thompson makes the claim that the more recent form of posting ideas through short messages, such as tweets or texts, fosters both a desire and action of more long-term mediation and recitation. 

While I’m not totally opposed to Twitter, I don’t think it usually has this effect that Thompson claims. I myself am a frequent user of Twitter, and I think it’s a great tool for our generation. It can get a short, simple message out to the public extremely quickly. Twitter can help lead a movement or rally millions of people in an easy and instantaneous way. 

What I like most about Twitter though, is not my actual intimate friends that I follow, but instead the news sources that utilize the social network. I enjoy logging on twitter either between classes or whenever I have a free moment and seeing what’s going on all around the world in a brief, 140-character text. When reading the headlines from either politicians or new sources, I always have the intention of returning later to the internet and searching the story more deeply; however, this does not always happen. What tends to happen more is I get busy with school, work, my friends, my mother, my sorority sisters, or one of the other many things I probably have to do that day. While I love reading the news and staying informed, I usually have higher priorities as a college student, such as studying, socializing, or working to pay that rent.  I am also fully aware that it is not just college students that lead a hectic and crazy lifestyle, as do many adults who work 40 or more hour weeks and juggle other responsibilities on top of that such as families, volunteer positions, or second jobs. 

 I think Thompson does have one thing right—with bloggers utilizing Twitter for “the little stuff,” it perhaps allows them to feel more compelled to write more frequently a detailed and well-thought out analysis on the subject at hand, in comparison to the short posts on Twitter. However, I do not think this is a mutual exchange. I don’t think it necessarily makes readers jump to those long, though out blog posts. Granted, for some readers it may. I have seen that other readers are content with the mere 140-character or less description of the story, which often leads to a false understanding or biased view of the story. 

I was in class the other day, and overheard a highly entertaining conversation. Two girls were talking about something a local news source had tweeted. Being familiar with the story they were discussing because it was written about a good family friend, I knew one of them had stated a blatantly wrong fact about the story. In the next few seconds, I heard the girl discuss the fact that she read the story on Twitter. She was obviously satisfied with the shortened version and didn’t care to think any more on the situation. My point exactly.  And that’s all I could think about as I read this article.