Twitter and Communication - Research Paper Example

Twitter and Communication The development of social media and technologies has not only caused huge changes in our nowadays communication but also transformed a lot of other aspects of human lives. Twitter is one of the most popular social networks of modern society and it is being used in different ways, still its main function is texting and it serves multiple purposes within the social network. For me Twitter is the tool of communication which allows me to maintain relationships with the people that I don’t see very often, in addition it influences my social life and allows me to stay in touch with the world around me. The very first thing that must be considered within the topic is how Twitter has modified our communication. The issue is very important as Twitter plays a crucial role in society, because people usually rely on the information they read there and carefully select the information they post on twitter themselves. As far as more and more portable technological devices like smartphones and tablets are getting released almost every single day, availability of communication has the biggest rates than it has ever had. Personally I use my smartphone most of my time no matter where I am, because the device is always with me and I have a constant access to the Internet. The Twitter application allows me to stay in touch with the rest of the world any time I want, because I always can open my Twitter account and read what’s new happens, and not only in my friends’ lives but in the world in general. I also use tablet, because it is convenient to share news with my friends by posting links to my news feed through it. The availability of technological gadgets in fact impacts the way me and all the rest of people perceive communication nowadays. In the article “Evolution of Communication: From Email to Twitter and Beyond” Alex Iskold points on the fact that Twitter is not only a simple communicational tool but it is a service that is both a messenger and a blog (n.pag). Thus it turns out that Twitter users can post any information that concerns their lives without any requirement to get any response to it. This nuance makes Twitter a kind of social networking that has notifying character. For instance, when I want to interact with a particular person I may send a message on Twitter, which the person is supposed to read; although I do it publically and I get the person’s response that everybody in my news feed can also read. This kind of communication destroys the boundaries of privacy in relationships and in fact even allows anyone to enter the conversation as well. However, in the meantime Twitter messages might also be more alike to blog posts, which means that they might not require any particular recipient and be concerned either everybody who reads news feed or no one at all (in the situations when people just post some facts that they want to speak out somewhere). One way or another, Twitter communication makes people feel like they can constantly speak out anything they want and this would be read by someone. Another interesting aspect of Twitter usage in modern world was noted by Aviva Cuyler in the article “Social Networking: Leveraging Twitter, Linkedh, and Facebook”, the author claims that Twitter is one of those social media that make it easy not only freely communicate with other people, but also easily find right people for communication (20). Thus if a person wants to talk to somebody on any matter, one can go on Twitter and find thousands of tweets from other people on the topic one needs. Using such things as hashtags and retweets, it is very simple to find out what people from all around the world think on a matter. The internet concept of hashtag has become a kind of the sign that might characterize huge topics and global problems by using only elementary sign “#” at the beginning of a word or a continuous phrase without spaces between words (Reed n.pag.). The accessibility to people’s minds from all around the world makes Twitter a global networking, where anyone can share anything with others. In addition, texting on twitter made the flow of information worldwide faster than ever. Thus when something happens in some part of the Earth, everyone knows about it within the next few seconds. It turns out that Twitter works even faster than news services; furthermore, it is often happens that news portals proclaim their news making references to Twitter posts. Notwithstanding the fact that Twitter lets people communicate with each other on any distances, still this might also turn communication into a harmful remedy. It turns out that Twitter microblogging shapes public opinion in nowadays society and it might even cause huge revolutions or change the course of presidential elections in the very last moment (Quinn & Northover n.pag.). Twitter not only influences public opinion, it also develops freedom of speech, because anyone can write any information out to the world and hold responsibility for their words. CNN report about the crucial ways of communication that Twitter has affected so far reveals that twitter creates “thought leaders” in massive communities (Gross n.pag). It turns out that Twitter is the communicational tool that is capable of creating celebrities, people who are “famous for being famous” (Choi & Berger 314). Furthermore, people might even become famous for nothing, if they are being properly featured within the social network, and later their opinion would become authoritative for many other Twitter users, who are just familiar with the “celebrities” because of their being famous on Twitter. However, there are a lot of public people whose Twitter accounts are being their official mediums for their public statements. For instance, the President of the United States of America has his own Twitter account where people can read which nationally important events are happening in the president’s life. I also have some people in my news feed on Facebook who I’m not familiar with, for instance, some celebrities. The point is that for some reasons I’m interested in what’s going on in their lives and I often check whether there are some updates about them. Furthermore, reading celebrities on twitter creates an effect of presence in their lives, so it seems like you are able to take part in different events along with them. In fact in concerns not only celebrities’ lives but also the lives of the people who are far away from me and I have no opportunity to get involved into their lives. So reading their Twitter posts makes me feel like I’m participating in the same activities they are currently involved in. Indeed Twitter has become a huge part of people’s lives. I often use it not only in purposes of communication but also in order to get some news about what’s going on in worldwide society. Twitter constantly provides me with the freshest information about global ecological and political problems, updates in celebrities’ lives, and the brand new internet jokes. Thus 10 minutes on Twitter educate me on the matter of life of the society I live in. Some researches show that such availability of information makes people dependent on social networks and in some time people lose their ability to select which information is trustworthy and which is not, so they just perceive what they get from Twitter and believe in it blindly (Reed n.pag). The point seems really reasonable, because sometimes the fact that people take information from Twitter and believe in it blindly can be confirmed by many situations. For instance, college environment might often use Twitter for sharing false gossip and sometimes it might even ruin someone’s reputation. Thus in such cases Twitter becomes a harmful remedy of social influence and people (especially teenagers) often use it in bullying purposes. Another aspect of people’s lives that Twitter has changed in its essence is the separation of public and private spheres. Twitter has taught people that it is nothing unusual nowadays to demonstrate your private life to others; moreover, it has inspired people to share the current events that are happening in their lives with others. So now people who use Twitter can’t live without demonstration of their lives and posting at least something that gives a hint of what’s going on around them at this very moment. However, this aspect of twitter communication often helps people to maintain their self-esteem and feel more freely to express themselves in real life. Twitter as a messenger is one of the most important functions of the social network. I often use it to get into touch with my friends and relatives from other countries. I’m able to maintain my relationships with people through the social network and use this function on a daily basis. However, one more important thing about Twitter communication for me is that I can not only text to my friends and get their responses but also I can get to know what they think about current events happening around. This aspect of communication is crucial, because that’s what people usually do when they talk in person – they share their opinions on multiple matters and try to explain to others their point of view on this world. Still there are a lot of people I want to stay in touch with, but distance between us makes us forget what kind of people we are, because we cannot share our thoughts. Thus Twitter helps me to find out what these people are thinking about, even though they are far away from me, and this is the best thing about Twitter. As for texting and its value in my life I believe it contributes a lot to my perception of communication. Communicating through social networks, especially Twitter helps me to conduct multitasking, which is definitely not possible during in-person communication. Moreover, researches show that social networks allow people to construct their own images (Gross n.pag.), so it is possible to create any image you want through texting something on Twitter. Also, texting on Twitter prevents me from having deeper conversations when I don’t want them. Thus I can just answer something that wouldn’t mean anything special and over the conversation I don’t want to maintain. Twitter is a great communicational tool of nowadays society. It influences people’s lives and help them to stay in touch with the beloved ones and even unknown people from all around the planet. For me it is mostly the tool that maintains my relationships with people who I can’t reach in person because they are far away. Works Cited Choi, Chong Ju and Berger, Ron. "Ethics of Celebrities and Their Increasing Influence in 21st Century Society". Journal of Business Ethics. 91(2010): 313-318. Iskold, Alex. "Evolution of Communication: From Email to Twitter and Beyond". Readwrite. May 2007, n.pag. Web. Quinn, Karl and Northover, Kylie. "Dismissed as a joke, Twitter revolutionises the way we communicate". The Sydney Morning Herald. March 2011, n.pag.. Web. Reed, Peter. "Hashtags and retweets: using Twitter to aid Community, Communication and Casual (informal) learning". The Journal of the Association for Learning Technology. 21(2013): n.pag. Web. Gross, Doug. "5 ways Twitter changed how we communicate". CNN. March 2011, n.pag. Web. Read More