killing little birdies: the use and misuse of social media

I have been thinking lately about the virtues of social media. In particular, I refer to Twitter and Facebook. I regard Google+ largely as a willful figment of imagination, or perhaps an ill-advised collective hallucination. App.net exists, I know, but if its raison d’etre has expanded beyond “screw twitter”, no one has let me know. In a similar vein, I am also ignoring Instagram as a social media tool, because, well, hashtaghipsterhamburgerhelper, amirite? As powerful as your gently filtered, lovingly styled pics of locally sourced artisanal cheese doodles are, junk food doesn’t really bring people together. And Pinterest is just scrapbooking for people who can’t wait for glue to dry.

So, when I talk about social media, I’m mostly talking about Twitter, Facebook, and their satellite apps and stuff. But actually, mostly Twitter. Let’s begin, shall we?

avoid hashtagmememe

I am troubled by the impulse of Twitter users to use it as a mirror rather than as a mailbox. This twitch is not inherent, but it is far too easily cultivated. We tweet about our tweets and our retweets. We mention that we got mentioned. We follow our followers. There is a whole tribe that viciously unfollows those who refuse to follow back reflexively...as if Twitter were not a network but a massive, ethereal circle pit. And by the way, I'm not preaching, I'm confessing. I do a lot of this too. That's why I say "we".

The reflexive reflective stuff is inescapable, I know. Yet the most useful moments I’ve experienced on Twitter were those involving genuine curiosity. “Hello, person I’ve never met. Let me ask you about {a}. You appear to have some knowledge on this subject, and this magical place puts us on equal footing, as long as we both choose to engage." It’s Q-and-A, call-and-response. And it is useful. What if we did that more?

be aware of bufferghosts in the machine

I use Buffer. I use it a lot. It’s a great tool for storing up a bunch of links, random thoughts, and other crap that I believe strongly enough in to put my imprimatur upon (except that retweets aren’t endorsements, bitch. And why should anyone assume that a retweet is an endorsement? Can we get past that? If it were, we'd spell it "rendorse"). Buffer makes it easier to spread out your thoughts, as it were, to tweet more like a gentle rain than like a firehose as you hunch over your ‘puter at lunchbreak.

Buffer’s best qualities for individual users, however, lead directly to the creation of one of the worst qualities of Twitter, namely, that at any point, you could be talking to someone who isn't even there. Granted, Twitter doesn't guarantee a realtime conversation, but apps like Buffer and HootSuite contain features explicitly designed to make it appear like you're where you aren't. And why? Sure, you might want to tweet in your sleep so your tweeps in Seoul or Dubai or Dubuque won't feel like they're getting yesterday's mail (tho people just to the right of the international date line must get frustrated when shit keeps happening on the day after the day they just finished. Or is it the left?) But I doubt that international sensitivity has much to do with our time-delayed tweeting. In fact, most of us just want to trick others into thinking we're super busy and super important folks for whom sleep is both elective and unnecessary. It's like when people used to brag about the thousands of emails they got, back 10 years ago when that was still the look.

I don't know if there's an easy way around this. Use a few precious characters to note a tweet which is buffed? Just don't do distributed tweeting? Stop worrying and learn to love the tweets?

embrace asymmetry (unless it's a one-shoulder top…)

In civilized meatspace, no one expects you to sleep with everybody willing to sleep with you. That’s how gonorrhea spreads. And yet, many, many users of the Twitter seem to hold the belief that their choice to follow you demands reciprocity. How many times have you seen a new follower pop up, only to vanish within a few days if you have not followed back (and sometimes even if you do)? Yes, some of those people are simply dipping their toes in your tweet stream, deciding if they like the feel and the flow. They may not. Let them go. Those aren't the people I'm talking about. I'm talking about the people with exactly the same following/followers count. The peeps who TY each new follower. The peeps who use those weird little stalker apps for the sole purpose of not letting unfollowers get away with a better follower count than they "deserve". (Those apps have legit purposes too...so chill. I'm just talking about the popularity-conscious here.)

So don't drop a tweep like a hot brick based solely on whether they followed back within 24 hours. That's like calling a woman a bitch after she declines your offer of a drink. Be aware that in that case, the bitch in the room is you. The internet is a magical place, filled with sites that will offer to function as your black book of potential conquests. Leave Twitter out of it. If you don't like seeing their tweets, then by all means, unfollow the hell out of them. They have no place in your tweetstream.

Twitter doesn't work great as a news/info site if you follow too many people. You simply can't see what everyone is saying. You either have to accept that you will just miss a large amount of what passes by, or you have to whittle down your following count. Of course, it's fine to follow 43,000 people. But I'm just going to assume you don't have any interest in actually hearing from them.

find some shibboleths

One of the very nicest things about Twitter is the way that sometimes, strangers can understand each other with perfect clarity. The #gloaming tag was a good thing to have around the holidays (the "holidays" here being 'Merican Turkey Day and Christmas). And how heartening would it be for me, if I tweet: "you do not have to be good," and see a few replies assuring me that "You do not have to walk on your knees/For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting". That's just nice for poetry nerds. Or, for other nerdery, a recent tweep knew exactly in what voice to read my tweet "think about it, won't you?", even though I didn't put in any hint at all. (Hint: Kevin Murphy can do it real well.)

So Twitter, despite all its quirks and frustrations, is still valuable to me. This post doesn't offer solutions, or call for quitting social media en masse. Just consider what you're doing, and why. Maybe we could do things differently. Maybe we'll get more out of it.

Think about it, won't you?