Twitter - The Potent 140 Charactered Social Media

Well most of us know that Facebook has won the social media race hands down! But would anyone dare to oust Facebook? Would they dethrone the third largest country? (If there was ever one) and take up its position as the ultimate social media! Is Facebook losing it? And is that paranoiac feeling prompting them to go on an acquisition spree? Orkut is like a rotting corpse. Google + joined the party later only to realize that it had lost. They tried to give it a shot but ended up embarrassing themselves. Although its concept was well applauded, it failed to make a big enough splash in the ocean of social life.

So is Twitter going to be the King-Slayer? Can it thrive in this ever changing world where technologies wither away within a short duration of time?

Yes. Definitely! Twitter has definitely emerged as a dark horse and is ready to take the spotlight from the all mighty Facebook. Are you ready to embrace Twitter?

This great platform was built having a strong foundation which was to give normal people the power to disseminate information! The truth is when Twitter was established in 2006, most of us joined this network thinking it would strike a similar chord to the others. Our amateurish minds couldn’t perceive the potential this platform of 140 characters had stored within itself. Now it’s potent than ever. Ready to do as much damage as it can appreciate! It can unabashedly take on anybody; it can criticize blatantly and can make you quite a narcissist! It can trounce on certain matters say politics or about a certain views in society. It’s highly opinionated and is a rich treasure trove of knowledge.

It is powerful!

Tweets are regularly the starting point for news stories. Twitter has brought many sports fans closer to their heroes. During the Egyptian uprisings, Twitter was a key channel for protestors to disseminate material, and to also organize gatherings. The ubiquitous hashtag was revived by twitter and has played a monumental role in segregating specific information! So much so that people have doltishly used the hashtag symbol for anything and everything. Feeling Meh!

So most of us actually have a Twitter account we never used! But let’s go back to this rudimentary question, what is Twitter? It’s another innovative way of connecting with people (mostly unknown), companies, fan clubs by sending out short lucid messages called tweets which are nothing but the thoughts bouncing off your mind. It’s similar to a status post but less fancy. Your Twitter timeline is inundated with news of people you follow! If the luck gods favor you, you might strike a conversation with your favorite sports star, actor or a celebrity. Or they might even retweet you! Throw in a pinch of ingenuity, keep it witty, have a knack for words and watch your presence amplify!

At this point some of you might stop and question,” What about Facebook? Even that’ll give me a lot of information!” I Agree! But Facebook is more adulterated and polluted! It’s more about the glamour quotient! It’s about the likes you get, the selfies you take. Whereas Twitter is more of a stripped down version, a simple, brilliant, humble school boy in contrast to a beautiful, average blonde! There’s a lot of unnecessary bullshit on Facebook! It is prevalent on Twitter also but it’s confined to 140 characters only. As one of my friends put it, “It’s more formal and a lot more calm out here”

 A few more reasons I would prefer Twitter to Facebook is due to the advent of those annoying advertisements. Stop justifying! It definitely gets on peoples nerves. In a few months time video ads which will auto run are ready to pollute our timelines! We have a hard day’s work and voila! We are greeted by ads! Seriously? Yup I know you guys make a bomb out of these but stay true to your motto, “Connect with friends and the world”. Here is where Twitter crushes it to a pulp! Absolutely no ads what so ever! There might be a few sponsored tweets. But it isn’t as distracting as it is Facebook. It has changed its privacy settings infinite number of times and has also faced the ire of netizens prompting them to commit virtual suicide. In comparison the changes in settings is pretty insignificant on Twitter. It is definitely more intellectual and allows us to have a meaningful conversation with our followers. The tweet battles among various bureaucrats of different nations or celebrities are to die for. These trivial things make twitter all the more interesting 

Twitter is for the cleverer person lurking inside you, conveying an emotion or a statement within that constraint requires you to comprehend and form the correct word flow! Twitter is for that part of you which is hungry for news from genres you follow! You can follow a lot of twitter demigods who have thousands of followers because of their witty and clever tweets which usually cover everything under the sun! Unlike Facebook there are no insanely long statuses which demand a few likes which is then ludicrously equated to respect! Unlike Facebook, in Twitter you don’t need to have that premeditated murderous look on your face when you meet those people who unnecessarily tag you! #NoTagsOnTwitter

For those of you who have grown tired of this media platform which is beginning to stale! It’s been polluted and has lost its charm. Twitter can never think of such a foreboding thought. Its core values revolve around the dissemination of information and that’s what it stands for. Facebook might not see the light at the end of the tunnel in a few years time and might fade away into oblivion.

Embrace Twitter! And welcome to a new social experience which should leave you craving for more. Twitter can never perish completely nor can it be stagnant. It’s always found to be bustling at the centre of the human social sphere!

#LongLiveTwitter 

Don't forget to follow me :P

Stop and Look Up

I realize that we are doing more clickety clacks on the ubiquitous smartphone and laptop in rather painful, awkward positions and situations than people did on typewriters in their life time. I realize that some of them are slaves to their online avatar and have split personalities. I realize that people are more on social media than socializing in real life. I realize that they give more preference to thumbs up than others personal opinions. Finally I realize that we are usually online rather than living life on the line!

Are we really talking? Do you hear yourselves? Not those text based thoughts which rapidly transfer from your mind to those screens aided by those ultra fast fingers! I mean do we meet up, sympathize, and connect! I don’t mean poking or direct messages or even sending ephemeral enticing pictures.

How long can we look at the world around us without looking down? Where is our social etiquette going? On walls?  By confining it to 140 characters?  Are we really talking? Other than peering down our 5 inch screens and smiling discreetly? Are we becoming social recluses? I agree most of us share an intimate bond with our phones and the net, at least I do. But what if we looked up and saw the world with a different perspective and actually spoke to real people than those on chatheads floating at the edge of the screen.

All this rant was inspired by a video which is doing quite a bit of rounds ironically on the social media. It’s about how this generation has been paralyzed, how they put in more effort to wield influence in these online social spheres and make them more acceptable among their peers. It shows how small children’s childhood is curtailed due to excessive use of devices like iPads, phones etc. They are hooked on to it and it shows how swings are empty as they have become more technologically inclined. It also shows how a person loses out on life just because he takes a lending hand from Google maps. And then another contrasting one shows how he’s in search of an address and he serendipitously finds his future soul mate and how they do their bit to help further the human race. It exhorts us to look up and switch off that display!

These days there’s increasing number of young messengers who keep to themselves, almost drowning in their miseries, comforting themselves with a flurry of text messages, wrapping themselves up with a few old memories instead of creating new ones. Ultimately not finding solace anywhere and driving them to take drastic steps!

Stop and look up! Don’t let your life revolve around the internet or your device. Give more prominence to the people who revolve around your life. Talk with them, interact, and meet because sending random texts are just ephemeral and its void of an emotional connect.Stop and look up! Find and meet interesting people who have a similar wavelength(not virtually), share thoughts, (not by collaborating on evernote: P) smile, reciprocate feelings (not by using those trite emoticons and smileys)

As my friend put it, its all about social acceptance. More the acceptance, the more human you are. Does more likes on facebook make you feel like a hero? ( I do :P) while the person who actually clicked on that symbol would've done it either under obligation or while he was sleepy and they rarely do it on their own volition. Does more retweets on twitter make you feel important! Does checking in make you more popular? but for what cause? To make you seem cooler ? Does virtual activity really matter in reality ? How I wish the Klout score would have given us discounts! Be yourself and never settle for anything less!

No doubt that the internet has proved to be an invaluable mate to all of us all the time but it shouldn’t creep into our personal lives, so much so that we let it describe our emotion virtually. One of my friend who had taken a sabbatical from the use of whatsapp and other internet related social media described her feeling in one powerful word, “Peaceful” and another friend says she doesn’t use her phone when she’s with her friends and family and devotes that time to them exclusively. Yup I know that’s a difficult thing to do.And

posting asinine remarks on your walls like I’m feeling lonely, in a relationship and other bullshit, in hope of finding some answers from the 1000+ friends you have is futile. Instead look up, mull over life and the people you actually care and talk to them

Stop. Look up. Talk. Live in the moment