Please someone explain all the hoopla surrounding Twitter. I don't get the attraction.

[ncteechur]

[tekisui]

1. It is for the ever shortening attention spans of quick, but meaningless

information-addicted people.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

5. It's like mental crack. nt

Edited for spelling

[tekisui]

2. dupe.

[leftstreet]

3. Please someone explain all the complaining about Twitter n/t

[BlooInBloo]

14. I understand neither the attraction nor the bitching.

[elocs]

4. Hey, I don't get the attraction of texting.

:shrug:

[DemBones DemBones]

27. Here's what's good about texting:

If you phone someone, your message goes to voice mail. If you e-mail someone, your message waits until the person has time to check e-mails. It could be days before your message is heard or read.

But a text message goes right to the person's cell phone and gets there right after you send it from your cell phone or from your computer. We only use texting to get important messages to traveling family members, though; it doesn't appeal to me as a way to truly communicate.

[Canuckistanian]

43. From what I've seen, texting is mostly done in real time

At least with teenagers and young adults.

I've often wondered why they just don't text "hey, call me, K?"

I think it's because they can text things that they wouldn't prefer in their OWN voice.

[Posteritatis]

54. They're also often billed differently

If you've got a cell phone plan that offers foo free minutes and bar free texts per month that can affect which you use and how. A lot of cell plans can be pretty vicious on the amount of time you can talk into the thing while offering a number of free texts per month that would make the Bible look terse, for instance.

I do get "call me"/"can you catch the phone right now?" texts now and then though, and don't mind those. They can be less disruptive than an out-of-the-blue call in some situations, and if I can make the call/catch the phone it only delays things by a minute anyway.

(And of course, for consistency's sake, lol@referring-to-a-major-demographic-monolithically.)

[DemBones DemBones]

63. We just use it to say "Hey, call me" or to

give a short message.

You may be right that kids like texting conversations instead of just "Hey, call me" because it is easier on the nerves to text than to talk on the phone. I remember being a teenager and some phone calls were really stressful, especially back in junior high.

[elocs]

47. I still have no use for texting. There's nothing I need to communicate that I cannot do better

with a phone call or an email. The same goes for IMing. I have an old friend who will IM me and since we both have free long distance I don't understand why she simply doesn't call because we can sure say a whole lot more in less time. Plus, it's simply nice to hear an actual voice.

[DemBones DemBones]

61. It's a lot better to text someone and say

"Call me" and have the person call right away then it is to try phoning and have your message go into his or her voice mail and not be heard for some time and/or try e-mailing and have your e-mail not be seen for some time.

[elocs]

65. Naaa, calling and emailing works just fine for me. I've no reason to change.

Besides, there are few people I either call or email. I just don't have any use for texting.

[question everything]

66. And whetever is being text is really soooo important that it cannot

wait for the person to listen to a voice mail or check and email, right?

What is it about people these days that they need an instant message that says absolutely nothing?

[Posteritatis]

68. Yawn, more equating a medium with possible content on it (nt)

[ipfilter]

79. I didn't "get" texting either until I got my Blackberry.

Texting is great for fast informal conversation. For example, my son can't make it to baseball practice. I just send his coach a text. He's a busy guy and does not have much time to talk. I send him a text, he gets the message and goes on with his busy day and so do I. Sure, I could call him, but it's just so easy to type out a short message and skip the formalities of a phone call.

[omega minimo]

6. "hoopla" 2mneltrs

[Sal Minella]

17. What would be better? Just an exclamation point?

2mneltrs took me a bit but I used to work with medical charts. Hx, Px, Dx, Rx & discharge was the story.

[omega minimo]

30. i'm shrugging now

:shrug:

[Sal Minella]

38. k...bi

:)

Edit: Oh, you mean the medical abbreviations?

History
Physical
Diagnosis
Treatment
Discharge

[omega minimo]

40. now i'm explaining that on Twitter you give a play by play of every move you make

Ya know, like that "oldies" song? :evilgrin:

[cynatnite]

7. I don't get the attraction of facebook, myspace, and Johnny Depp. n/t

[readmoreoften]

10. Really? You don't get Johnny Depp? That ruins me and my GF's theory on Depp.

We thought everyone would sleep with him--male and female--except bears (i.e. gay men into big burly hairy fellas.) We're lesbians and we find him attractive. My straight male friends have said they wouldn't kick him out of bed. Hmm.

[cynatnite]

11. Yeah, I don't get the attraction much to the amazement of all my friends...

They want to jump him and they think I'm nuts.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

64. I'm a lesbian, and I'd totally sleep with Johnny Depp

LostinVA's ex-military BIL is very straight, but he says Johnny Depp is the only dude he'd get with.

[Sal Minella]

67. As BonBon (with Javier Bardem) in "Before Night Falls"

[seabeyond]

16. pirate?!!!!!. lol lol. i get the depp thing, but not the rest. n/t

[NYC_SKP]

8. I was wondering the same thing... I don't "get" the Twitter.

The Twitter is, to me, like so many teens chatting on their cellies.

I just say "No" to the Twitter.

[RC]

9. It is for people with out a life that want to pretend they have one.

[cynatnite]

12. I actually like twitter...

It's great when a person is on the go like I am.

[ncteechur]

23. but who do you talk to?

[cynatnite]

29. I have a few friends and family members...

also have Rick Sanchez, too. I have about two dozen or so contacts on my twitter page.

[omega minimo]

44. what do you Twitter about?

on the go

[cynatnite]

49. different stuff...

whatever's going on. I go on there two to four times a day depending on how much time I've got.

[omega minimo]

57. how much time is that?

when you're "on the go"?

[cynatnite]

62. What do you mean? n/t

[Retrograde]

13. it's for people who are so important

(at least in their own minds) that everyone everywhere must know what they're doing every minute of the day.

The technology has its uses, especially in emergencies or when things are changing quickly, but it's mostly use to send messages like "klyn7 is leavng the house" or "josh88 just woke up". It's like your typical blog postings, but more self-centered and without the thought and reflection.

No, I don't have a Twitter account.

[AndrewP]

22. I just found it creepy. But to each their own.

[bitchkitty]

15. Because it's fun!

But I like Facebook better - you can send your friends presents, or fart on them! :D

[Eryemil]

18. Ugh. Old people.

[Peregrine Took]

21. Yes, even YOU, "Eyeball", will be old some day. n/t

[Posteritatis]

24. The daily two-minute hate on the silly thing is kind of annoying, isn't it? (nt)

[annabanana]

19. Please explain to this rapidly aging lady. .

What's the dif between twittering & texing? and Instant Messaging?

(confessing to being baffled. . . be kind)

[Posteritatis]

31. Definitions

"Texting" is basically sending anything through or to a cell phone that isn't a voice call or media like pictures or video. That restricts your options to, well, text, hence the term, a contraction of "text messaging." Because of design limitations in cell phones and the standards built around them, there's a fairly small limit to the amount of information you can cram into one message; it's usually 140 or 160 characters. I use it for quick messages to folks' cell phones if I'm penny-pinching minutes on my account, or if I know their phone's off/out of signal range (the message will appear when it gets back), or if I'm on a crowded bus and can't hear myself think, etc. Lots of people use them substantially more often, of course.

Instant messaging is a catchall term for a variety of different ways to chat online with others in realtime using computers (as opposed to cell phones). It's a very broad term - there's a lot of instant-messaging methods out there that don't look at all similar to one another. For those, I'll set up an account - almost always free - with one service or another (AOL, MSN and ICQ are each popular; I've noticed weird regional variations on which people use most) under a nickname, email address, ID number, etc., which I can share with others on the same service. If one of them is logged into the service and I show up, they can see that I'm online, pop open a chat window on my computer or vice versa. Instant messaging is usually one on one, but most of the services allow people to make chat rooms, and some of the older systems like IRC are designed for group conversations.

You can think of texting as a stripped-down version of instant messaging that's done through a cell phone mainly, as opposed to a computer.

Twitter is a service/website that basically attempts to combine the group-conversation aspect of instant messaging with the texting component of cell phones, which are the most common (though not only) way people speak to/hear from the site. You set up a Twitter account or "feed" which others can follow, or you can follow others' feeds. The basic idea is that you can send a text message - called a "tweet" in Twitter jargon - to the site, which can then relay that message to anyone who's subscribed to your feed (or, if you want to restrict things, people on a list you set up, etc.). A lot of people play around with the idea to blog within the confines of the texting character limit, which is where we get the term "microblogging." It and texting have mroe or less turned into parallel ways to use cell phones instead of voice calls, because voice minutes and text messages are usually billed in seperate ways. If someone's cell account is predatory about voice minutes but offers unlimited or at least large amounts of free text messages per month - which is fairly common these days - it lets people get use out of the phone without getting exorbitant bills. Of course, if that's not the case someone who texts a lot will get them anyway, but I've found the options and the fact that it's pretty much two parallel systems happening on one appliance interesting.

Twitter's come up a lot lately mainly because it's the current fad among the netfolk, because most people hate anything new that shows up online, and true to their usual form the media's discovered it a mere two years after it showed up. I don't care for - well, care about - Twitter at all, but I also find the enthusiasm people put into complaining about it more than a little irritating, not least due to the fact that a lot of them very, very obviously don't know what they're talking about or want to. Someone on DU discovers Twitter, decides it's a conspiracy or threat, and starts a thread like this one (usually with more vitriol) every couple of days lately, which is kind of sad.

[annabanana]

45. Thank you so very much!

I didn't realize that teh twitter had the IM "group conversation" aspect to it.

(I confess that I didn't want to ask my kid... There's only so much eye rolling I can take in a day)

[Posteritatis]

52. It depends on how you're using it pretty much

Some people use it for conversations like that - I know a few people who have these weirdly interconnected feeds involving a few dozen people so that they basically carry a mobile message board around with them, which is sorta neat. Others use them chiefly for announcements - a lot of public figures (politicians, authors, etc) who use it use it for that. In that way it's similar to stuff like Facebook status updates (in theory; mine on FB are often relentlessly silly).

A lot of stuff like that these days isn't really rigidly structured; people take a platform or site or whatever and make of it what they will. Anyone who's talking about what a service like that is doing as if it's only doing one or two things is really missing the point; it'd be almost the same as saying that cell phones are only used for such-and-such at this point. A whole lot of crap travels through both, but that's no reason to assume that's all there is, which happens a lot these days. In my case a lot of stuff I could do in Twitter I'm already doing elsewhere and/or don't care about, so my getting into it would be redundant, but I'm also well aware that that's not the case for everyone.

[Baikonour]

20. The Youtube generation's attention span is ever-shrinking.

I suppose that's its appeal.

[Posteritatis]

25. "Youtube generation?" FFS

We've had the Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Myspace and AOL/etc "generations" in the last fifteen years, and I know I'm missing a bunch.

You want to talk about shrinking attention span, take a look in the mirror or at all the other people who decide that every single new fad showing up online is somehow the key thing to a new "generation" of Young Stupid Kids These Days, and insist on relabeling everyone younger than middle age every eighteen months or so.

[Baikonour]

26. By youtube generation, I meant they want instant gratification.

Much like you can go on Youtube and find, instantly, anything you want.

The whole twitter/youtube/myspace/AOL "generations" are really just the evolution (or devolution) of the same generation that started in the mid-to-late 90's. We live in an age where anyone up to speed with the current technology can get almost anything the want instantaneously, and now they expect politics to behave in the same "instant" fashion. The typical mindset among people, especially young people (and, of course, the MSM) is "What? Obama hasn't fixed the economy in his first month? He MUST be failing!"

Not sure why you're telling me to look in a mirror, but maybe I'm just misreading your post as confrontational. I'm tired.

[Posteritatis]

32. This young person continues to find this characterization of him hilarious

I'm telling you to look in a mirror because you aren't exactly winning the attention span contest there if you're doing the same rename-the-"generation"-every-year-or-so thing that most other people seem to be doing these days. If this thread was happening last year you'd have used a different word before "generation," as would most other people who use the general term as a pejorative. A year before, the same thing. I'm seeing a general flightiness and lack of consistency there to say the least.

I'm just seeing another of those "damn stupid kids these days" rants that probably haven't changed since they laid the foundations to Ur. Well, that and people trying to psychoanalyze a few score million people based on whatever fad they discovered and decided up front they don't like.

I'm also kind of surprised at DU the last several days, considering the rate at which these "I just heard about $CONCEPT and think it's evil, why is it evil?" threads have been popping up. It'd be awesome if people examined and reacted in that order, but I'm starting to think it's beyond quite a few people anymore.

[Baikonour]

35. I don't dislike Youtube, and I'd be lying if I said I don't use it on an almost daily basis.

Furthermore, I first heard of the term "Youtube Generation" about 3 years ago on a blog, when Youtube was just reaching its height. So, I'd be saying the same a year ago that I am today.

I'm also not saying that the instant gratification that Youtube, Facebook or the internet in general provides is necessarily a bad thing, so long as the young population (myself included) understands that it does not always translate over into the "real" world. Typing a string of words and pressing enter isn't going to fix the economy.

[Odin2005]

34. You are a perfect example of the clueless older person who just doesn't get it

[Baikonour]

37. I'm 26 years old.

Who's clueless?

[Odin2005]

48. You said "they" so I logically assumed you weren't in the same generation.

Sheesh. :eyes:

[Baikonour]

51. Not sure why you're sheeshing me, you threw the insult.

I felt it more natural to say "they" than "us." Besides, I'm talking mostly kids born in the late 80's. I missed out on the whole AOL movement that really got the ball rolling.

[omega minimo]

42. no we know ya'll were poisoned in the womb by Rumsfeld's NutraSweet

:yoiks: :hug:

[Odin2005]

46. I thought the latest woo woo BS was that my Asperger's was caused by vaccines.

:rofl:

[omega minimo]

53. nope, it's Rummy's fault

:evilgrin: I wouldn't woowoo you

[closeupready]

28. I can't explain it because I don't understand it either, let alone even know what it is.

That goes for Digg, too. It all seems redundant to me. Marketing the same product in a snazzy new package, give it a new name, claim it's different, even though it isn't, and voila, you've got e-traffic! :rofl: Whatever. I just don't get into it.

[Odin2005]

33. It's just typical "Damn kids these days" BS with no basis in fact.

Calling my generation a bunch of unintellectual idiots with short attention spans is the current popular BS meme among clueless Boomer polemicists.

[omega minimo]

41. jest don't Twitter so much ya get twitchy

:freak: :hi:

[Doremus]

36. I dont know much about it, but it's great for finding out what's going on

My daughter saw a bunch of police and crowds on her way home from work one day. There wasn't anything on the local news. She went to Twitter and found out there was an armed standoff at a local restaurant. One of the employees, who had run out when the gunman entered, was Twittering from the parking lot!

I'm in favor of anything that lets people communicate directly with each other, i.e. cutting out the middle men M$M.

[yurbud]

39. I don't get it either

[Bill McBlueState]

50. Writing a message board post

of fewer than 140 characters in which you complain about Twitter is pretty high on the irony meter.

[Posteritatis]

55. Win! (nt)

[omega minimo]

56. almost as ironic as

devising a new way to profit from making people OCD with gizmos

:bounce:

[Posteritatis]

58. That's a Morissetian standard of irony if I've ever heard one (nt)

[Bill McBlueState]

75. Nice turn of phrase

Googling "Morissetian" returned "Did you mean Morrisette?" That was all I needed to know. :rofl:

[Stevenmarc]

59. It's for minutiae-maniacs

Because everyone needs to know every gem like moment in your life.

[omega minimo]

60. aka

"neurotics"


:bounce:

[WorseBeforeBetter]

70. And their neb-nose audience. (n/t)

[WorseBeforeBetter]

69. But it's going to revolutionize the way we communicate!

Or so I'm told by a self-proclaimed "new media strategist, devourer and generational specialist" ... and with a straight face, no less.

[omega minimo]

72. it's the new Safe Sex!

Not tonight Dear, I'm Twittering

[brooklynite]

71. I'm sorry, what were you saying? I was updating my status...

[Mollis]

73. I don't get it either.

I tried it once...but didn't look enough at it to even understand what it's for.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

74. "trying to eat around the brown soft parts of my apple. yuck."

That's an actual tweet. Yeah, I don't get it either.

[Mollis]

76. haha

Guess people think that everyone else cares about...well..everything they do

[Lex]

77. I think it's perfectly ok that people like different things.

nt

[malaise]

78. MSGreedia promotes Twitter non-stop so my guess

if they'd rather get people hooked on one line sound bites like they spew ad nauseum rather than read well researched blogs.

Fugg the twits.

[JHB]

80. DDay on Digby's Hullabaloo says it best

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/twits-by-dday-politico-seeking-to-prove.html

Usually DC gets these things 4-6 years after the fact, like my grandparents' rural small-town radio station ("Coming up, music from a hot new band called The Who!"), but Twitter allows the chattering class the double pleasure of maxing out on their Blackberry usage, along with being forcibly constrained by time and space to definitively not talk about anything of import whatsoever. "John Edwards' haircut ZOMG LOLZ" fits the format; an analysis of proposed USDA country-of-origin labeling policy doesn't. And the structure of having "followers" surely appeals to Village types. All in all, it's better than passing notes in junior high! Actually, kind of the same thing!

Twitter: it's one tool, but there are fools out there who act like it's the complete Black & Decker product line.

[JHB]

81. dupe

.