The future is mobile…

“What are you doing?” That’s the simple, no-fuss question Twitter asks. And it seems that despite Twitter’s 140 character limit, users are only too willing to share everything and anything. From the deeply personal to the seemingly inane, there is no holding back. Call it emotional vomit. Or maybe exhibitionism 2.0 for those who don’t have what it takes to strut their stuff in the nude but still want the thrill of exposing and revealing the taboo for all to see.

Regardless of what you label it or whether or not you care what people are doing, with an estimated 6 million registered Twitter users and 44.5 million unique visitors in June alone it’s clear that Twitter is fulfilling a societal need. The question is what. What is that makes people willing share and document the intimate details and mundane happenings of their life and to do so in a very public way?

To get a better sense of how willing to share Twitter users are, I used a Twitter search engine to find tweets about topics you wouldn’t ordinarily share with the strangers you pass in the street. The search results, below, were not surprising.

Marriage

blessedamerican said:

“Celebrating 15yrs with the greatest man I know. I am truly blessed by my marriage and his love for me.”

Love

HollyJKDavis said to jordanknight :

“Good Morning handsome!! Hope your foot is doing good…Can’t wait to see some dance moves……love ya”

Divorce

morriscraiga said:

“Having a fantastic day, divorce finalised, time now to restart and rebuild my life”

Birth

theaimage said:

“Congratulations to my brother Garrick and his wife Kimiko who just gave birth to a another beautiful baby girl!”

Twitter is a cesspool of thoughts and feelings that belong in someone’s personal diary and yet have been vomited into the void of cyberspace. And there, in cyberspace, these tweets become immortalised, accessible by anyone at anytime. And that is the power of Twitter. It has nothing to do with who reads the tweets or whether or not they care. Twitter is about venting and sharing and getting it off your chest. It provides the Twitter user with a safe space to process things and some catharsis.

There are other sites or platforms that allow a user to vent and share. Postsecret , for example, is a site where users can anonymously mail any thought on one side of a postcard. These thoughts are then posted on the site. There is also fmlife.com , a site where people share and vent about moments from their day that were funny, irritating or simply unfortunate and ruined a perfectly good day. Again, this is done anonymously. What makes Twitter and Twitter venting unique, is that all venting takes places within the confines of a community created and controlled by the Twitter user. With Twitter venting, anything shared is not simply being dumped into a void but being shared with a community which can empathize and perhaps offer words of comfort or the odd bit of advice. It’s a type of dialogue or, if you like, quick-fix therapy. And the beauty of it is that a user can have the support of a community and still remain anonymous.

You may not care. Why would you? Tweets are the leftovers after a good meal. They are the scraps you’d rather toss than eat. And that’s the point of Twitter. Those who moan: “I don’t care”. They are the ones who miss the point. Who have little, if any understanding of Twitter. See, Twitter has nothing to do with the reader. Although for voyeurs, it may provide some interesting insight and a behind the scenes peek. There are also occasions when information or links to articles of interest are shared via Twitter. And that is useful. But Twitter’s real utility is for the writer who is given a safe space to vent. Twitter therapy, I like to call it. Ever heard of stream of consciousness? Well, Twitter is stream of consciousness gone digital.

Stream of consciousness involves expressing thoughts in a random, disorganised manner without self-censoring or any regard for punctuation or spelling. Twitter is the perfect platform for this. It encourages venting and has become a forum for stream of consciousness where users seem to write about whatever it is that comes to mind. The power of stream of consciousness is that it hints at what is happening at the level of the subconscious:

It is worthy to remark that transposing our streams of thought through mediums like words and paintings defile and even expunge the underpinnings of a person’s consciousness.

Studies have been done which link expressive writing, in the form of stream of consciousness, to an improvement of the health and general well-being of children suffering from post traumatic distress disorder. The studies found that writing about traumatic events gives the victim a sense of control and power over the trauma. The victim is able to able to turn the traumatic event into a manageable narrative. Twitter provides users with a space for stream of consciousness. A space to vent. But it could also be used for trauma debriefing as the victim is given control not only of a narrative but of a community of Twitter followers.

These are the things people should keep in mind the next time they criticise Twitter. They should stop and ask themselves why Twitter has so many dedicated users. What it is these ‘Twits’ get from Twitter that they cannot get elsewhere. And how Twitter can and perhaps is already helping people in need. If used properly, Twitter can be a powerful and very cathartic tool.

“Oprah, of course … without a doubt,” she said.

And for a while I sat in amused silence. In mild shock. And processed this. I had given my friend two options : Oprah or the school girl from Afghanistan maimed with acid for wanting an education. “Whose daily musings would you be most interested in?” I asked. Oprah? This made no sense to me. Oprah?  After all, what value and insight could a celebratory, who is bound to see a microblogging service like Twitter as a free PR, image-bolstering channel, add? That’s what I was trying to understand. And while may friend explained, nothing she said was compelling enough to help me reach that level of tinsel-town enlightenment where Oprah has a God-like glow and I decide to follow her on Twitter.

But just because I wasn’t budging that doesn’t mean the rest of the twitosphere felt the same. After only a day on Twitter Oprah has a following of 248,630 people and counting. And in true Oprah style her first tweet was sent live on her TV show with the help of another Twitter celebratory whose name has been dominating the Twitosphere: Ashton Kutcher.

See Kutcher was the winner of the recent Twitter race to one million Twitter followers which had been raging between him and the news organisation CNN. As part of this publicity stunt, Kutcher promised to donate 10 000 mosquito nets to a charity for World Malaria day if he won and 1000 if he lost. Not a bad deal. But it doesn’t stop there; Oprah and CNN now also plan to donate to this cause. So what are all the Twitter veterans and those few dissenters moaning about?

Kutcher is now the King of Twitter. And Oprah is fast become the queen. It didn’t take long for these celebrities to not only become the most popular Twitter users but to dominate conversation in the twitosphere. And that’s where part of the problem comes in. I think some veteran Twits may have bruised egos for these celebrities didn’t have to work too hard for their Twitter success. But they miss the point.  Since these celebrities made their presence known on Twitter that has come to dominate many tweets. Twitter was meant to be a space free and separate from mainstream media. Instead now the twitosphere has become a space for more celebrity worship and gossip to thrive. How exciting.

Kutcher tried to make his Twitter victory seem like a victory of the individual against mainstream media. He talked about democratisation of media and how instrumental Twitter is in this process. Nice try Kutcher but you can’t play that card. This is Ashton Kutcher and Oprah we’re talking about after all. No average Joe, no matter how interesting, could rival their fan bases. Also Ashton had a well-established offline fan following and the help of 1,133 digital billboards. You can’t beat that!

Twitter was meant to be an open space where people built a reputation based on the quality if their tweets. Now the rules have changed. And we can thank Oprah and Ashton for that. It’s now a type of popularity contest where everyone hopes to be retweeted by a celebrity. Because if that happens you can lie back and know you’ve made it. Ignore content. And quality. Ignore those voices that Twitter was meant to help bring to the fore. This is now a playground for the big kids and unless you are one of them you have very little chance of influencing the news agenda.

Yes anyone can set up a Twitter account. Tweet. And share their daily life, thoughts and experiences with the world. But this isn’t true citizen media. The same rules still apply. The few influencing the many. That’s how mainstream media works, remember?  So go ahead … tweet away. Maybe someone somewhere will care. But for now, brace yourself for many retweets as these celebrities make themselves at home.

I could never claim to be a twitter-box (a twitter chatterbox) or twitter-lebratory. I don’t have hoards of followers who hang on my every word, retweeting as they see fit. And I doubt any of my carefully crafted 140-character tweets have been turned into mantras. No, I’m certainly not one of those A list twitter-users (twits?) with a behind the scenes ghost-writer or a VIP seat at every tweet-up. But there is a part of the twitosphere that is filled with my tweets. And for me that is enough. Sometimes it’s nothing of particular interest to anyone. It’s just something I want to get off my chest or show people. And so I do.

So as far as twits go, I’m the new girl on the block. And yet, twitter has had an impact on my life. I don’t mean in the sense that I feel the need to unleash a daily torrent of tweets describing my breakfast and how I really need to get a haircut or some sleep. I’m a relatively disciplined twit who only has the occasional emotional tweet-splurge.

My Twitter moment is quite simple. It involves another twit, @nivcalderon. Now he belongs to the ranks of the retweetable twits. I guess you could call him one of the Twitter grandmasters. He and I met through Twitter at a time when I was thinking of moving to Israel. He proved to be the perfect sounding board: an Israeli with knowledge of Israeli media, something I would give my eyeteeth to be a part of.

A year later, I did move to Israel and Niv and I met in person. Still preoccupied and perhaps a little obsessed with getting a job in Israeli media, I explained to him how I’d had very little success doing so. And he listened. He made a few suggestions. And then offered to help. That’s when I had my Twitter moment.

See he used Twitter as a space to introduce me to his followers. Sent out 2 tweets: tweet 1 and tweet 2. He also uploaded a picture of me to twitpic. Within seconds of doing so I had at least 5 new people following me on Twitter. One of his followers started following me simply because I was a friend of his. You can’t ignore the power of Twitter, if you know how use it that is. And ok I didn’t get a job out of that Twitter experiment but I made some contacts that may come in handy.

These Twitter moments are certainly not unique to me though. Recently a California woman admitted via Twitter that she planned to commit suicide. Demi Moore picked up on this cry for help and retweeted the message to her many fan-followers. Because of Twitter, the suicide attempt was stopped. There is also the case of the journalist, James Earl Buck, who was arrested in Egypt while covering an anti-government protest. And with one simple tweet he was able to inform family, friends and all his follows of his predicament. Arrested – that’s all his tweet said. He was able to use this tweet to get in touch with that network of people and secure his freedom.

And then there are the recent protests in Moldova which are being flagged as the first Twitter revolution. The protests were in response to election results which many believed were rigged. Online social media applications, like Twitter, played a role in organising these protests. Moldovan-based Twitter users started using the tag (hashtag) #pman, which stands for Piata Marii Adunari Nationale, Chisinau’s central square in their messages. This was their cryptic way of organising a meeting place for the protesters. There were at least 10 000 protestors who showed up. Because of Twitter, you’re probably wondering?

There are some things that you need to consider. And maybe they’ll convince you that the hype around this Moldovan Twitter Revolution is just that … hype. For example , there are only 70 Twitter users who specify their location as Moldova. Some are suggesting that this ‘revolution’ was actually organised remotely by Moldovans abroad. Some also suggest that too much credit is given to Twitter as the mobilizing tool for the Chisinau central square is a natural place for people to gather and given the tense political climate Moldovans would need little incentive to join a protest.

So perhaps it wasn’t solely a Twitter-orchestrated revolution. But you can’t ignore the role played by Twitter. The organisers, regardless of where they were, did a good job flooding the twitosphere with tweets related to the protest giving it more coverage. Twitter also allowed for decentralized protests where you didn’t have to be in Moldova to play some role and make your voice heard.

On the level of both the personal and the political twitter is causing reverberations that extend behind the twitosphere. The interesting thing is that these reverberations are having an impact offline. And people are turning to what has been mocked as a blogging application for those with too much time and too few friends to affect change. To me, twitter revolutions are happening every day. Maybe not in as dramatic a form as the Moldovan flash mob. But I just think of the daily triumphs and achievements like the suicide which Twitter helped prevent … and well to me that’s a type of revolution. One in which the average person is given a front row seat to their world. No more passive consumption of media. Now you; me; everyone can have a say and play more of an active role in society. The biggest mistake you can make is to see Twitter as geek-hype. If nothing else, that’s a lesson we should all take away from Moldova.