What is the point of twitter?

Here is an excerpt from the twitter feed of a social media expert who has 32,880 followers. What exactly about these “tweets” is worth following? And why have more than 32,000 people decided that they want to follow this person?

*random thought after reading some tweets. Could Twitter be used as a dating site?
*Blah I hate cold rainy days.
*i want pizza
*well i was going to get pizza. But my friends didnt bring me back any like they promised uggg
*Found a pretty kool student film from one of my twitter friends/ I liked it check it out [link]
*YEAH for it being a nice day!!
*am i big nerd if i just bought a replica lightsaber??
*hahah I am getting a bunch of yes and no. It is to scale, it does light up, and I do swing it around the room. No wonder I am single. Lol

And so it goes on. And on. Over 1,000 “tweets” of this kind of thing.

I can understand that no one can always say edifying and illuminating things, either online and offline. My friends and I routinely swap trivial and amusing bullshit. But there is a marked difference that and the aforementioned twitterer who is tweeting over 32,000 people! Obviously, only a miniscule fraction of these people are friends. So most of these 32,000 people have voluntarily subjected themselves to a steady diet of nothing.

On the other hand, there are some real advantages to twitter. I’ve had to be part of this rapidly growing phenomenon for professional reasons, and while I don’t feel I have personally contributed much of value, by following some insightful twitterers, I’ve been directed via links to websites where I’ve learned some useful things. The secret to twitter, I think, is to be selective about who you follow, and also, who you allow to follow you. If you adhere to a group of people with similar interests, you will reap benefits. But if you are indiscriminate about it, believe me, you will be subjected to BS all day long.

As a side note, the other day, the Republicans started following me on twitter. A prime example of an indiscriminate and utterly futile use of the network. If they’d spent even one minute looking at my profile and tweets, they would have realized that I don’t live in the United States (and hence am totally useless to them) and moreover, that their crypto-fascist party represents everything that I loathe in the world.

But back to the twitterer above. Thanks to Internet, people have immediate recourse to broadcast the thoughts that jump into their heads. In so doing, I think many people get an overinflated impression of the worth of their own thoughts. I might feel that my desire for pizza is important. But it’s really only important to me. And there is really no point in broadcasting a thought whose only concern is me. Before the advent of new technologies, my thoughts would have remained my own private business – or at most, circulated among a small circle of friends and family. Then came the telephone, and I could call someone and tell them I want pizza. Then came reality TV, and I could broadcast my inane desires to millions (eg. The Osbournes); the Internet is simply more of the same.

These tendencies are not particularly healthy. We’ve had enough of the idea that “everyone is important and unique” etc. The more we value ourselves as individuals, the harder it will be to overcome the problems we face collectively. Communication is not simply yakking up the multitude of trivial and inane thoughts that any individual experiences on a daily basis. It is listening, learning from each other, and understanding each other.

Over here, Darren Barefoot is exploring related ideas about social media’s drift toward the superficial.