Let’s face it, many of the 140-character “tweets” by individuals seem inane. Why would Twitter users want to read short messages about what someone ate for breakfast or lunch? It’s a reasonable question. However, people like President Trump seem to understand that social media has become the nervous system of the American news business and political thinking. With one or two tweets, Trump can dominate cable TV, the web, newspapers and talk radio for an entire day.
The attention span of the average American and Canadian is about a few minutes before they need to skip to the next social media excerpt. The need for brief releases proved very successful during Trump’s campaign when he cultivated a Twitter fan base. His core of supporters continue now to hang on to his every tweet as if it were gospel. In turn, the main stream media is forced to pay attention to President Trump’s tweets which have now become part and parcel of our daily news. However, his continued use of Twitter has proven to be much more than a mere annoyance to Trump’s advisors and staff, since they must regularly respond to each nonsensical tweet by clarifying what the President actually meant to say in the tweets.
Now, we have Twitter co-founder Evan Williams apologizing for the fact that Twitter may have helped Trump become President. You see, Twitter tends to penalize nuance and moderation, while rewarding hot takes and bombast. Twitter was intended as a research tool to allow individuals, governments and business share information and opinions about products and services through social media. However, like any new technology, the Internet and Twitter can also be abused by anyone to put out “fake news” or spew hate and falsehoods instantaneously anywhere in the world.
Evan Williams is correct in suggesting that Twitter can create more problems than solutions, but he may be giving social media too much credit. I would suggest that the fact that over fifty percent of Americans and Canadians get their news from social media, their blind acceptance of such news and opinions without further investigation is the real problem. One 2012 study further revealed that 51 percent of people age 25 to 34 use social networking at the office – more so than any other age group. Doesn’t look good for future generations!
I personally gather my information for my blogs from reputable news sources which are normally peer reviewed for their facts and accuracies. Without journalistic integrity, who is really to blame if individuals simply accept opinions or arguments put forward in tweets and social media as valid and truthful? Like anything else, it’s buyer beware. For all you know, one might be providing you with a bill of goods, biased and filled with falsehoods. I also keep my blogging to four or five short paragraphs in recognition of our brief on-line attention spans. Given Trump’s limited attention span, Twitter certainly appears to have been made for him.
FROLITICKS 