I was one of Scott Karp’s friends on Twitter and I admit, I enjoyed our interactions there. Now I learn that to Scott, the conversations there were a massive waste of time.
He qualifies it, leaving some wiggle room:
Let me immediately qualify that — it’s not that ALL of Twitter is a waste of time. It’s that TOO MUCH of Twitter is a massive waste of time. Some aspects are hugely valuable and well worth the time. There’s really interesting “conversation.” There’s connectedness. There’s discovery.
But the noise to signal ratio is WAY too high. And the temptation to Tweet for the sake of Tweeting is WAY too high.
Isn’t that what human interaction is like? Sometimes there’s an urge to say something just for the sake of saying something — just for the sake of interaction or recognition. Sometimes there’s conversation that doesn’t really mean anything; there’s no signal in the noise of ambient intimacy.
Oh it’s the old productivity thing! Got to optimize the human right out of our lives:
But the big problem was that I was paying attention to Twitter too often when there was something much higher yield I should have been paying attention too — especially work I needed to get done.
Wanting signal in the noise of your human relationships and wanting to get items checked off your to do list as quickly as possible — now that’s an instrumentalist view of things. Who’s the isolated geek in this picture?
I don’t understand why people have to go beyond saying “this didn’t work for me” to slamming the people for whom a tool does work:
For people who look to the web as a tool for efficiency rather than time wasting (e.g. people who use search instead of randomly surfing for what they want to find), the first generation of social apps my prove to be just playthings, rather than applications that make their lives easy and simpler (again, think about search as the archetypal web app)….
In many ways, the web has become the new TV, i.e. a way to veg out — Twitter and Facebook make that time wasting social, which is probably a good thing on balance. But it still sucks time away from “real life,” i.e. family and work and having time to spend with people IN PERSON.
This is insulting, Scott (and it’s lazy, just repeating the same myths of the Internet that people all around the world use).
I work from home — and I live in Denver — exactly so I can spend more time with my family. And then I use the web to conduct my work life, with people from San Francisco to London. It’s not a way to “veg out” and it doesn’t suck time away from “real life.” It is real life. My professional relationships are real; my work is real; my online friendships and interactions are real.
I’ll agree that it is an addiction, just like David Weinberger said:
I myself have been showing disturbing signs of being compulsively human. I’ve noticed that I feel an urge I simply cannot control to be social. This really began to scare me when I tried not to talk and found that after a mere seven hours - seven hours! — I said, “Howya doin’?” to the bagger at the supermarket. I didn’t want to. It just slipped out. I couldn’t control myself. Ever since, I’ve given in to my urge - yes, I know, I’m sick - answering the phone when it rings, responding not only to questions but to mere pleasantries, and even initiating conversations when they weren’t strictly required.
It’s a nightmare. And it gets worse.
it’s not just that when I’m with others, I - ugh! - participate in destructive social rituals like caring what people are saying. Even when I’m alone, kind thoughts about other people invade my consciousness. I feel an impulse to wonder what they’re thinking and what matters to them. I try to focus on computing pi or to remember the 1955 Dodgers starting lineup, but I just can’t shut out those images and feelings.
Sometimes - and I’m so ashamed to admit this - I use the Internet to sate these shameful urges.
8 Comments
Oh, come on, Anne, that post title is no better than what you’re accusing me of.
I was quite clear that the people were not a waste of time:
“I found Twitter to be mesmerizing, which partly reflects the brilliance of the design and partly that I was following really interesting, insight, enjoyable people, whose random musings were worth following (and my high opinion of the people — many of whom read this blog, and whose blogs I read — remains unchanged).”
And I agree with the ambient intimacy theory, too.
My perspective on Twitter is nuanced, and I know you know that, but we all know the nuance doesn’t make for a good blog post headline.
Actually, Scott, from reading your post I don’t get the sense that you have a nuanced view of Twitter. I get the sense that you added in caveats so you could quote them back when people took offense to the real thrust of your argument: “I don’t use Twitter and I’m superior to all those addicted unproductive idiots who do.”
I do not know that your view of Twitter is nuanced, I don’t know anything of the sort.
You put in bold: Twitter is massive waste of time. If the people were not the waste of time, then what was? Twitter is a very bare technology — pretty much just people saying stuff. If that’s not the waste of time, what is? Logging in? Launching a Twitter client?
Seems like there’s some high-quality link baiting going on with both posts!
Something that people are giving enough consideration to is that the state of Twitter clients is abysmal. We’ve got hundreds of feedreaders that let us intelligently filter through the chaotic flood of news that’s published to the Internet, but we don’t have any great tools for filtering through Twitter yet.
Better Twitter tools should address Scott’s concerns while preserving the things you like, Anne.
Anne,
What was a waste of time?
- “Half conversations,” which I explained
- Auto blog post links, which I blogged about previously
- Comments and thoughts for which no obvious reference point was given (which might have been interesting if fully articulated in more than 140 characters)
But my caveats about all the GOOD in Twitter were honest — and I said my decision about twitter was personal. I never said you should I stop using Twitter because I did. And my observations about the amount of time we spend in different part of our lives were philosophical, not a “slam.” (I have to wonder why there is so much sensitivity on this issue.)
But really, if you think I’m being dishonest about the aspects of what I wrote that get in the way of your demonizing my perspective, then I suppose I can’t really change your mind, can I?
Still, I don’t consider talking to you here a waste of time?
Do you?
OK, as I sidestep the argument . . .
Twitter for those of us who work from home is as much a part cube distractions, like the break room online, as it is information source.
I may not care what Jeremiah’s listening to or what Michael Krigsman’s having for dinner, but it gives me a chuckle and frankly, I’m not required to care b/c neither one is in front of me.
I’ve met both these guys in person, so that makes it more human. So, personally the human element is a nice feature, mixed in with all the information overload.
Twitter’s value is in the eye of the beholder. There are many, many useless blogs out there, but that doesn’t mean blogging or reading blogs are a waste of time.
Thankfully, I can choose to ignore (”un-follow”) any blogs I like.
Scott: the way it was written, it was a slam. Maybe it was a personal decision and your own personal experience, but it also judged other people in harsh terms, saying that people who use Twitter and other social software look to the web for time wasting (vs. your focus on efficiency) and that they are neglecting their families.
Of course I don’t consider conversation here to be a waste of time.
Jake mentions the cubicle noise factor. Exactly why I call Twitter head popping over the partition conversations. Too much and you never get work done. Too little and you become a drone in a cube. But just enough = great value for social and knowledge sharing reasons.