My Problem with Twitter

By Scott Maucione on 09/24/2009

It seems like everywhere I look these days someone is talking about Twitter. I'll get home from a day of classes and turn on CNN to find Rick Sanchez bragging about his Twitter feed as his rock-hard, hair sprayed mop sits inertly on his head. Or I'll look at a newspaper that tells me to check out its up-to-date Twitter postings for minute-to-minute news.

But, is Twitter really a good thing for journalism? People are always in awe of the technological splendors that can keep them in the loop on worldly on-goings. My question though, is how much can 140 characters really hold? How can one transfer depth, analysis and intellectual wonderings in the space of a measly text message?

Newspapers are already cutting down on their sizes leaving less room for discourse about the topics written about. Twitter is just further degrading our intellectual capacity and attention span.

Neil Postman's book "Amusing Ourselves to Death" comes to mind when I think of Twitter. Postman makes the case that mediums like television dumb down information for the masses taking us further away from typographical thinking and dragging us deeper into a soma-like comatose.

Does Twitter not do the same thing? Granted journalism is supposed to condense information, but not to the point where it is practically the size of a headline. Journalism is supposed to keep our minds active not dull them down into putty.

Many journalists defend Twitter with the example of the Iran elections. After the elections,

revolts ensued and to save face the Iranian government shut off all outside contact with the world and prohibited journalists to cover the protests. But, how do we really know how reliable those sources are? In order to protect their identity and keep from governmental repercussions the Twitters masked themselves as anonymous users. So what is keeping them from just making up whatever they saw just so they can watch their feed on CNN?

In my last article I said it was time for a media revolution, but Twitter is going in the wrong direction. What we need is a media that truly works for the people by discussing the important topics instead of giving in to deep business pockets, short Twitters and TV ratings. 

[Additional Images: "Glossy Twitter", saltpublishing.com, "Cell Phone Texting", tsongas.com]