Are Twitter and other social media platforms just fads? If so, does it matter? Do fads have their place in the global process of creativity or do they instead distract from progress?
There’s a lot of “ooh it’s crap” Vs “ooh it’s great” going on in the general media at the moment about Twitter, with a lot of nay-Sayers proclaiming what a waste of time it is and how it’s just a lot of inane (if brief) ramblings from people with nothing better to do.
Maybe, maybe. But so what? Us humans have been partial to fads for as long as we’ve been able to partake in them. Whether it’s a crafty hobby or that thing where people draw a ‘tache on their finger (!?) or a “fashion moment”, there are always new or renewed ideas that get a lot of people interested and willing to cheerfuly devote a fair chunk of their time to. There’s also always a fair chunk of people who will look at the latest fad or fashion and have a disproportionate reaction to it.
Why? I really don’t know. Could it be lack of comprehension? It’s comforting, in a way, to react against something you don’t understand and set out your stall as an anti- whatever. I know I’ve done that before. It can be unsettling to be on the outside of something, especially something that, on first glance, might be quite technical or complex. Far easier to decide it’s “not for you”.
Less easy is moving beyond that point to be actively outspoken against it. I have noticed on my travels around the ether that the effort put into “dissing” Twitter is almost comparable to the effort put into actually using the thing. Does that mean anti-Twitter people are indulging in their own fad, then?
From fad to future
Regardless, there’s a place for fads of all sorts in our society. New ideas spring up, gain a wide following, become the latest must have/do thing, reach a peak and then gradually stabilise. During that peak period, there is a scramble as everyone involved pushes to mould the activity to suit their uses best. ‘Rules’ are debated, pocket factions created and opinions fought over. This gives the anti-fad people much fuel for their argument and at the same time puts off some of those pro-fad people who liked the fad for what it was when it first started and who don’t see the need for it to develop. This is irritating and uncomfortable but unavoidable and necessary.
What we’re left with when that stabilisation stage occurs is the bare bones reconfigured. A number of pro-fad and anti-fad people drop away as the fad moves away from their particular interests. Those who are left have a version that works for them – the committed people who use it most – in the way that suits them (as a whole) best. By this time a lot of the extraneous elements have come and gone and a sleeker, slicker craft emerges: no longer a fad but a part of our daily lives.
I see this happening right now with Twitter, the same way it did with Facebook and LinkedIn (and to a certain extent still is) and the same way it did when mobile phones first became a personal ‘must have’ instead of an expensive business-only communication method.
Creativity – a global process
I strongly believe that we humans are driven to communicate as widely as possible. It’s hardwired into us to find ways of expanding our social groups and give our evolution as a species as wide a pool of resources to pull from as possible. Our passion for fashions is a neat way of achieving this and the clashes that go with it are the way we sort the wheat from the chaff, the useful from the (fun but) pointless.
So carry on: debate, argue, make “rules”, react, fight and tinker.
This is the global process of creativity and every pro- and every anti- Twitterer is an integral player in the future of human communication.
Z
Fri, Apr 10, 2009, by LyndseyMichaels
Social Networks