I
have always thought of the term “microblogging” very interesting. I’ve usually heard
it used to describe Twitter. I’ve never thought of Twitter as a platform for
blogging, but it does seem to qualify. Twitter users tweet what they are
thinking about, and their thoughts on current events, which is pretty much what
bloggers do. It just makes it a lot easier to write and read these “blogs”
because they are limited to 140 characters.
van
Dijck tells us in Chapter Four that “the initial idea was for Twitter to be ‘a
sort of adrenalized Facebook, with friends communicating with friends in short
bursts.’” It’s true what the older generations say about the younger ones: we
have much shorter attention spans, and they are continuing to decrease (think
of six second Vines and ten second Snapchats). It is evident in the fact that
text messaging is the preferred method of communicating on our phones rather
than calling, because it’s much faster. That is why this 140-character design
format appeals to the younger generation.
The
longer that I use social media the more I realize that Twitter is more geared for
users giving their opinions and being witty, while Facebook is becoming more of
a diary used for either bragging and complaining. That isn’t to say that there
aren’t funny posts on Facebook or their aren’t annoying posts on Twitter, it’s
just my general impression. I think that since users only have 140 characters
to make a point, they are limited in what they can say so it forces them to be
creative in how they word their posts, and maybe makes them a little more
clever than they would be writing a paragraph-long Facebook post.
Facebook is a large database in which
users can do a number of different things, while Twitter is simply for brief,
concise posts. People get to their point much more quickly. For me, it makes it
a much more enjoyable experience because I can blow through tweets and laugh
and retweet the ones that I like. Maybe I’m just not a patient person, but I
prefer the short bursts of information that Twitter provides.
I would love to do a study that looks at FB and Twitter posts to analyze grammar, word choice, and sentence structure. I agree with you that Twitter forces writers to be more creative and witty--which usually involves the use of strong verbs and well-chosen sentence patterns. A while back, I made my FYS students tweet me their thesis statements so that they wouldn't rely on wasted words. They hated doing so. This was in 2007 or so, though, and Twitter was fairly new. I stopped requiring it, but now I bet most Twitter users would be fairly good at condensing a thesis statement to 140 characters.
ReplyDeleteUntil I read this Chapter, I never thought of Twitter as a type of blogging. But after thinking about it, Twitter is definitely a version of a blog. The character limit makes Twitter a microblog because every post is only 140 characters or less. A tweet itself is basically a blog post, and people tweeting at each in a conversation, is basically a comment system.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you that the character limit makes tweets much more interesting than a Facebook post with no limit. Almost all of the clever and funny things that I find on social media are on Twitter. Facebook, for me, is almost dead. I don't post on my Facebook anymore, and I only really keep it around for pictures and family. Most Facebook posts are just boring, not funny, or too long. At least on my Facebook, the people (that aren't family) still posting there usually are just saying stupid things. I don't really get any of that on Twitter though. I am entertained by going through my timeline pretty much every time.