4 ms·
My theory about Twitter is that the UI makes it feel like you are interacting in a really small group (by constraining how much you can see at any one time), wh
by cnity 4y ago
My theory about Twitter is that the UI makes it feel like you are interacting in a really small group (by constraining how much you can see at any one time), when in reality you are broadcasting to an audience of possibly many thousands. This produces speech and behaviour people would use with only close friends, but to a huge audience.
If you were just with one other programming friend, you might make reference to a repo you'd seen and say something like "yeah that approach is totally batshit", but you wouldn't say the same thing to the author in a public forum in front of many people. I think Twitter tricks our minds into behaving like the former but actually in the latter. So it's easy to forget that you may as well be directly insulting the author.
- cxr 4y ago> This produces speech and behaviour people would use with only close friends, but to a huge audience. Corollary: privately, most people really are assholes (and they just suppress it when they don't feel bold/secure enough to be open about it)?
- cnity 4y agoI've elucidated about this somewhere before, but I view this perspective as a little too cynical for my taste. I think exposure to public perceptions shapes people into more civil individuals, and this can translate to private life. A good simple example is the way people tend to tidy their house before having guests. The cleanliness isn't "false" by most people's view. Edit: Another perspective is that people use the company of trusted friends as a staging area for shaping their own nuanced positions. It's safer.
- specialist 4y agoAgain, totally agree. Cognition is social. Our social context can inhibit or boost our impulses. Starting with our inner voice all the way to global broadcast.
- specialist 4y agoAgreed. Clay Shirky made a similar point in Here Comes Everybody. Or maybe it was Cognitive Surplus. (Crap, sorry, it's been a while.) His analogy, IIRC: teens treat social media as hanging out at the food court with friends, not as public speech. To them, adults eavesdropping are the creeps, not the kids just being kids. Like, why would adults even be listening? It's just gross. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_Everybody_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_Everybody_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_Surplus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_Surplus
- cnity 4y agoInteresting, I'll need to give those a read. They sound interesting and related to what I've been thinking about lately. Thanks.