If all the talk of twitter has you wondering whether you've missed something important or hope the whole twitter phenom will simply go away, you will probably find Virginia Heffernan's piece in the April 19 New York Times of major interest.
Heffernan throws out the provocative question of whether--if she were "fully at liberty" to do what she likes-- she would bother to twitter. "In other words," Heffernan says, "I'm not sure I would use Twitter if I were rich."
Apparently, writer Bruce Sterling flung down the gauntlet at the South by Southwest conference in Austin a couple of weeks ago when he posited that the clearest symbol of poverty is dependence on 'connections' like the Internet, Skype and texting. It's "poor folks who love their cellphones." It all reminds me of the stories I've heard about JFK, that he not only never carried a briefcase in his life, he also never carried money. Why should he? There was always someone around who could pay for things if he needed to buy them. In other words, the poor or not so important people are the ones who have to mess with the details. And according to Sterling, the "details" include all this effort around connectivity.
The suggestion is made in Heffernan's article that rich people--or if not rich, people who have their lives together and are wealthy in the sense of having all the friends they need--don't have to seek out companions on the internet. The whole idea of "friending" someone is absurd. They have dinner parties if they want to connect with people. And the conversations at those dinner parties, it is suggested, are of higher content quality then the stuff one reads on Facebook. And they read books instead of poring over inane accounts of what someone had for breakfast. And they certainly don't "follow" others. Furthermore, the idea of strangers "following" them on a Twitter chain would freak them out. Why would anyone do that if their social life was already a contented one?
Hmmm. Check out the Heffernan article and let me know what you think.
Author of I is for Intercourse: The ABC's of Conversation, Susan Bird is the visionary behind Wf360, and a sought-after speaker around the world for her views on leadership, the strategic importance of conversation, entrepreneurship, and the role of women business leaders.
This is excellent news, we old hands have worried about this
important site for years, I recorded it in the 1960's.
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