The Trouble With Twitter
Yesterday, I began a small series of posts on community conversation. If you missed my first blog post on the topic you can see it here. Today, I want to write about Twitter and why in my opinion, it is not the best place for healthy community conversation.
Most of my friends and family don’t understand Twitter and why I use it. They ask, “Why would anyone really care what you are doing all of the time?” Or, “How can you really say anything at all in just 140 characters?” Twitter has become for me, and for many of my friends a part of how we communicate. Twitter is solely responsible for no less than 20 new friends I have made over the past year. And when I say friend, I mean Twitter has prompted or created an opportunity for me to sit down over coffee, a meal or a beer for no less than 20 people I very likely would not have had the opportunity to meet. Of that group of 20, there are several I have become pretty close with.
Twitter is a great tool for connectivity and immediacy. Just yesterday, I asked whether or not Sunnyside Deli took credit cards or not and within one minute I had three responses with the answer I was hoping for. (Yes they do take credit cards if you were wondering. Thanks to @mikeoz, @kimcollier & @fpudude10) That immediacy and the instant connectivity from others is what makes Twitter and those who use it so wonderful. Twitter was built for that type of dialogue.
There are several reasons I feel Twitter is not the best place for community conversation. First, Twitter is not built for depth. Let’s face it, 140 characters is not a lot of room to write something meaningful with substance. Next, community conversations are often quickly lost in the Twitter feed and difficult to get caught up on. This makes the conversation less coherent and less accessible. Finally, it is comical at times watching the amount of miscommunications, and misunderstandings that you would expect from a medium like Twitter. All of these reasons become in my opinion, legitimate roadblocks for using Twitter for healthy community dialogue. That said, Twitter has quickly become one of the most popular (if not the most popular) place for the dialogue of all things Fresno.
To be clear, I am not arguing that Twitter should never be used for talking about our community issues, only that it will never be the most fruitful or effective way to have important conversations. Twitter was not built for that. I am pleased to see the City of Fresno (@CityofFresno) on Twitter and citizens engaging the city about a variety of things. Twitter has pleasantly been used fairly effectively by the city and others for short questions with simple answers. But a question to the City of Fresno like the one in the graphic for this post can never be answered in full through Twitter. As far as online conversation goes, I am arguing that Twitter is not the best answer. Maybe you agree or maybe you disagree. Let’s chat about it in the comments.
Community conversation online could be a very effective way for many to discuss community issues, ideas and voice concerns. It is a viable option which can provide accessibility, transparency, health, forward-thinking & real action. Tomorrow I will wrap up my thoughts with my thoughts about the best solution for this type of conversation.
