TO TWEET OR NOT TO TWEET? by Matt Ward

The other night I was sitting at home and found myself looking through the latest news on Facebook and Twitter. Person A is cooking tea, Person B says OMG!, Celebrity A has some exciting news but can’t tell anyone, Celebrity B is slagging off Celebrity A. With these types of regular status updates and tweets, it got me thinking. Were these social media sites actually created for this kind of purpose?

I’d just like to point out from the start, I use Facebook and Twitter and find them both useful for sharing meaningful information. I first discovered Facebook a few years back when I was travelling Australia and found it a great way of keeping in touch with all the people I had met. It’s also a handy way of keeping your family and friends up to date with your whereabouts and photographs as you travel. I’m relatively new to Twitter, but already prefer it to Facebook due to the fact there is more useful stuff being shared.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m partial to the ‘check in’ at the pub, rant about the football and posting a few pictures from a night out. I don’t see anything wrong with that (in moderation). I just feel that some people need to step away from the computer every once in a while and actually interact with people a bit more without using the Internet. Everybody’s different and we all have good days and bad, but do we really need to post about it every five minutes? I enjoy reading peoples funny stories, weekend shenanigans or watching music video posts, these people are generally the people who post every once in a while, not every available minute.

I’ve recently discovered the ‘hide’ option on Facebook and might start using it for some of the moaning and pointless updates, which are becoming a bit too regular. Are we really that desperate for attention? Are we really that bored with things (If so, make a change)? Did we think through that last comment before posting it out there? Admittedly, I’m not the funniest or most interesting person out there, but I try and update with more jokey and interesting posts. I think I prefer Twitter due to the fact that the majority of the people I follow tweet interesting, funny and informative things, rather than constantly moaning.

I think the point I’m trying to make here is the interesting and funny updates and tweets, in my opinion, seem to be few and far between these days. They’ve been replaced with comments that I think sometimes should be heard and not read.

Maybe its just a sign of the times and brings to our attention the fact that many of us are bored with our current work/life situations? Or perhaps I’ve just gotten the concept of these sites wrong and shouldn’t be using them, let alone writing about them? Either way, I think we should be looking more at speaking to one another face to face or on the telephone, rather than always using these sites to vent our anger and frustrations every minute of the day. People have used these ‘old fashioned’ methods in the past and will still be using them in the future.

RANT OVER...

by Matt Ward

The Unofficial 'Brit Writers and Writers Everywhere' blog.