‘Twitter is for the socially inept’…Or should that be Jaiku?
Mar 27th 2008NiaLLLarkinSocial software & autistic social software & autisticsocialsoftware & designsocialtool & jaiku & jona lewie & socially inept & twitter
Dan Trevino had this to say over on Jaiku on a conversational thread that spun off from something Damien Mulley said in passing here
“Twitter is for the socially inept. You cant carry on any kind of conversation there, and maybe its not designed for that. Thats fine, but to me its just too messy…Twitter love is irrational…”
I wholeheartedly dis/agree. Here’s why:
Irrational love is compelling love
I totally agree that twitter love is irrational. But irrational love is also compelling love. The most compelling kind of love. Its the kind of love you want to experience in your life. Its the kind of love you should seek to cultivate. If you are interested in getting into business, its the kind of love you should hope your offerings inspire. Ask people why they love twitter and they are likely to shrug and coyly say ‘I dunno…’ Which is charming in its own way.
Rational love is NOT compelling love…
Jaiku love on the other hand is 100% rational. And much less compelling for that. Rational love is not compelling love. Love is an irrational commitment. Rational love? There is no such thing. Rational choice is the safe choice. Its the comfort zone. Ask a jaikuist why they love jaiku and they’ll rationally assert that it has a rich set of features that make it possible to control the noise and better manage conversations.
I’m bringing the party down. Why can’t I just lighten up a bit?
Even you geekiest of geeks and nerdiest of nerds recognise that one fault they have is that their conversational instincts can sometimes tend to bring the party down. That sometimes they are inclined to be blind to the fact that considered conversation is inappropriate and should be dropped when all are gathered for the purpose of having fun.
Its a GOOD thing to LOSE the conversational thread
The socially inept are those who are considered to be blind to or choose to ignore social cues obvious to the rest. Those that shy away from messy social situations where they are required to improvise. Those that are uncomfortable in confusing social situations. Confusing social situations where it is easy and in fact socially necessary to lose the conversational thread.
Twitter’s main feature is that it runs interference against deep and meaningfuls
The socially inept might well miss the point of Twitter. Twitter is not about considered opinion and considered conversation. Its main feature is that it runs interference against the social instinct to engage in deep and meaningful conversation.
Interference is a social lubricant
This interference is a social lubricant. As I’m fond of saying, people play loud music at parties for precisely the same reason. They want to run interference against the human instinct to sit down and have considered conversation. You know. Considered conversation being the type of conversation that is not conducive to a party atmosphere.
Irrational love feels so good
Some of the people who go to parties with loud music will naturally gravitate away from the action towards the kitchen. In some ways, Jaiku is the kitchen area at the microblogging party. While twitter is the main party room. Whether we are able to join in fully or not, we are all drawn to the buzz and activity of a party. Its a hard wired instinct. Its not rational. Its instinctual. And all the more real for that. And its deeply rewarding to our psyches to engage. And if we are unable to engage. Then at least to hover nearby.
Hows that for a detailed exposition of the light and fluffy? Heavy going? Time to lighten up with a bit of music. And who better and appropriate at this time than Jona Lewie.
4 Comments »
Is Jaiku your Party Room? | jaiku invites on 27 Mar 2008 at 9:57 pm #
[...] says that Twitter is only for the socially inept. This lead @NiaLLLarkin to counter this point with a brilliant post on his blog where he compares social networking to a house party. I’m simplifying but he [...]
jan blanchard on 28 Mar 2008 at 10:21 am #
the human instinct to sit down and have considered conversations?? how could this ever be instinctual? Twitter runs interference against the social instinct of having meaningful conversations???
IF twitter is the party room then twitter IS the social instinct - and it’s mission is to kill the well learned pattern of having considered conversations. if twitter is the party room, twitter is the unlearning social tool - Instinct is irrational, true and inspiring. Instinct is what happens in the party room or in the kitchen, when your traditional and learned social guidelines are broken, when you’re forced to react and let the magic happens.
Tweets like instinctual actions have no learning curves, they are hard-wired and ready to use and they do depend on some maturational process to appear.
Niall Larkin on 28 Mar 2008 at 2:33 pm #
Thanks Jan. Great food for thought. I love this: “Instinct is irrational, true and inspiring. Instinct is what happens in the party room or in the kitchen, when your traditional and learned social guidelines are broken, when you’re forced to react and let the magic happens”
And this…: ‘If twitter is the party room the twitter IS the social instinct’… I like but with the proviso that we are sure not to confuse the map with the territory.
I appreciate this: “the human instinct to sit down and have considered conversations?? how could this ever be instinctual?” It’s a good question which exposes the crack in my argument. I had originally written ‘the instinct of some people to have considered conversations’ but shortened it to ‘the human instinct’. Its not a basic human instinct, its an inclination common to certain personalities and alien to others.
Some people instinctively are drawn to pushing any conversational starter however lightly presented toward something more deeply engaging. I’d count myself amongst those. Others are always skimming the surface and flitting from one to the next as social butterflies. Some call them shallow. Others call them fun.
Perhaps every party needs all sorts of personalities and they combine to make up the personality of the party itself. This sort of thing must be at the forefront of the minds of people designing social software as the architecture of what they are designing will influence the nature of the party along with the types people it attracts who will then integrate with the design to give it a unique character that is often not predictable.
Maybe what we are seeing is different cultures arising on different platforms. And also seeing that great and ancient tradition of one society saying to next “Our culture is superior to yours because we have x,y,z” while the other society says “That may be true. But we have more fun :P”. The great thing about the internet and particularly microblogging is that you can you can slip in and out of conversations at will, like someone bar-hopping, flit from one to the other according to your energy and inclination and what you discover along the way.
Silona on 08 Apr 2008 at 6:40 pm #
I LOVE this. I have been saying over and over that Twitter is like an ongoing cocktail party that I peek into every so often to see what is going on.
It’s awesome because I can hear about stuff all over the world this way.
Cheers!
Silona