I'd love to do a sunday school lesson on Twitter. However, I feel like most of the time when people show videos like this the point is to laugh and shake our heads at how absurd and sad the rest of the world is. Instead I want to identify what is so human about things like Twitter and what people are wanting out of it - really wanting out of it. The idea of Twitter does sound kind of absurd and sad. As the video states, Twitter is there to fill the gaps between email and blog postings. The question of Twitter is "What are you doing?" Twitter exists, it says, to tell people who care about you what you are doing.
I see now that Facebook ripped the idea of status updates from Twitter. Status updates are strangely fascinating and addicting. Lyrics from songs, cries for help, way-too-personal thoughts, complaints, everything is on there. It's humanity flashing before your eyes - or, what part of humanity that we want to show our friends, family, and co-workers (the entertaining parts?).
So maybe this would be a two-part lesson. One part would be WHY we want things like Twitter to exist - why "What are you doing?" is such an important question to us (privacy? mystery?). The second part would be WHAT do these status updates say about humanity? What is written about? WHAT exactly are we doing?
Just came across your thought here.
ReplyDeleteMarta, what I really appreciate about this is your refusal to deny/reject technology. The easiest solution is to smash, it may be that the pressing task is to tinker with the machine until it's rays of light calm its wasteful heat. That may leave you with something beautiful, and not just a heap of junk.
On a side note, I found the BBC's use of Twitter during the US elections to be fun and fascinating.