Tag: twitter

I can’t tweet without you: How twitter feeds our inner longing for friendship

CreativeTools.se - Twitter bird standing on branch - Close-up by Creative Tools, on FlickrI think I’ve started to feel what it’s like to get old. Strange ‘#’ symbols started to flash up on the TV screen a few months back. Some odd new lottery I wondered? Oblivious to the newest and most important media advancement in the last decade, my friends laughed at my ignorance. Graciously educating me in twitter-speak, they taught me what ‘followers’, @ symbols, retweets and trends were. Since 1988 when an 8-bit Commodore 64 arrived in Christmas gift wrap, I have prided myself in being up to date with tech-culture. It seemed much easier when Mario was a child.

Although I am now twitter fluent, and a regular user, try as I may, I don’t get very excited about it. Like Facebook, it feels a chore – akin to laborious Christmas-card-writing – a necessity to stay digitally ‘connected’. Surely I am in the minority: of twitter’s 140 million (and growing) users, most surely use social media for the joy of it – delighting in sharing life’s experiences day, night and through those crafty under-the-table tweets. Read more