Pet Peave #23: Self-Gratifying Twitter Users

Twitter is taking the web by storm and I’m glad. Not only is it the “next cool thing”, but it is having a real effect on internet culture, how we use the web, and it is beginning (in my view) to change our “offline” culture as well. But that’s another post, another day. Right now, I’d like to point out one thing that irritates me about some Twitter users.

It’s the same complaint that I had when blogging first hit the world like an atom bomb of inane “look at what my cat just did” carnage. Sure, everyone has a voice now, but should everyone really have a voice? I guess so. Honestly, it’s hard not to want to restrict that freedom when your buddy expects you to look at daily updates on the state of his back hair. Or your Aunt wants you to look at 23 pictures of her in the Snuggie she got for Christmas on Facebook. Sometimes it’s best to keep our narcissism to ourselves until we eventually discover that the world simply can’t revolve around more than one person at a time. Now, years later, it seems like some of the “Cat Blogging” has abated and the blogosphere has reached a little more equilibrium (well… mostly). Maybe we just had to get it out of our system for a while.

Now Twitter enters the scene and the immediacy of communication and life-share gets us all hot and bothered again. The problem is that life-share can quickly become over-share.

With this is mind, here’s my advice on Twitter (twittervice?). After all, while you’re reading this blog post the world revolves around me. Right?

CONTRIBUTE. The power of Twitter is not in making your world more centered around you. Twitter is about connecting to a collective conversation. The occasional “I’m bored” tweet is ok. I really am interested in what my friends are doing. But, if you never contribute anything original, never post a link to something interesting and valuable, never add anything to the “conversation” then you need to rethink this thing a little. Do you ever have a thought that isn’t about yourself? Post it. If someone you follow contributes something valuable, retweet it. Stop acting like Twitter is your birthday party where everyone came to see you.

Maybe Twitter is simply reflecting something about all of us that we hesitate to face up to. Maybe we are all far more narcissistic than we think.

That is all. You may return to your own planet’s orbit.

[tags]twitter, micro-blogging, tips, help[/tags]