In a blog post Richard Nantel shares his perceptions about using Twitter for discussions in an article entitled The Challenges of Using Twitter for Discussion. It’s a simple short article that hits the nail on the head. It’s noteworthy as an exemplar of the emergence of more and more critical thinking applied to Twitter, and social media in general. Below is the comment I made on Richard’s post.
I’m with you on all this, but more so. To add, the pace is such that there’s an illusion of learning and communication on Twitter as one gets caught up in it.
What’s interesting is to go to a chat transcript and read it, not having been apart of it, and the “conversations” are really laughable if you remove the frenetic pace. It’s like being trapped in a fortune cookie factory.
There is SO much evidence of the limitations of twitter as an effective communication medium (ie. as touted as a medium for dialogue) that it’s amazing otherwise intelligent people can’t see the lack of depth of content.
Ironically, the characteristics that have made Twitter attractive initially (the buzz of fast participation) is exactly what keeps it from being an effective communication medium, and will also be the reason why it isn’t long term viable as a business.
Anyway, it’s interesting, that the huge majority of people who try Twitter leave it. And, the real though leaders, like Seth Godin, Jaron Lanier, Bing and others are slowly emerging as strong critics of both social media and Twitter.
