Twitter is an online status update website that has gained popularity over the recent years. However, with its rise in popularity has come an increase in criticism. Flutter, a similar website, responds to the argument that "tweets" are too long and that 140 characters is too many. In their youtube video the founders of Flutter argue that status posts should be limited to 26 characters. The limit of 26 characters will allow users to post more quickly. Furthermore, with the constant influx of posts, they argue that people simply don't have time to read the hundreds of characters. Flutter has even implemented a tool that will convert other peoples posts from Twitter or Facebook to a 26 character or less "flap". This function allows Flutter users to get the essential information from a long boring post that they simply don't have time to read. Flutter emphasizes the ability to access information rapidly in the digital world we live in.
As it turns out, Flutter is not a real website. The video was created as a comical mockery of Twitter. By taking what Twitter has essentially done to sites such as Facebook or even Blogger and stepping it up another level, Flutter has pointed out some reasons why Twitter may be flawed. For example, the tool used in the Flutter video converts long posts into shorter ones, but at what expense? The meaning of a post can be lost when the authors words are changed or required to be shortened by a strictly enforced character limit. Furthermore, the constantly changing short posts of Flutter and Twitter require constant updating and constant attention. This means valuable time from our daily lives is spent reading useless 140 character or less messages.
I agree with your point that shortening posts can have a detrimental effect on the messages to be conveyed. This was very evident in the video with the posts in which all of the vowels were eliminated or long Facebook statuses were cut down. However, some "flaps" that were designed to be shortly stated can be very useful in cutting straight to someone's point. Skimming and picking out key details is an important skill to have in today's society, and I think that Flutter helps us save time as well by clearly displaying someone's thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that spending valuable time on reading useless tweets or flaps is requiring too much attention. People always complain about "not having enough hours in the day", yet they are most likely spending a significant amount of time on social networking sites. Is it really worth our time to be surrounding ourselves with simple and usually pointless messages and updates from friends? Even if the post is abbreviated from 140 to 26 characters, we are still wasting time by reading others' updates.
ReplyDeleteI both agree and disagree with your claims. I agree with the fact that the amount of information that is on a rwitter Tweet does not merit the amount of time that is spent reading them. however, these tweets were not created as an official site for news and information, it is more of a leisure. It is the creation of a new pass time in our "fast paced" society. Twitter tweets allow people to express how they are doing in a manner that does not require them to be very distracted from the tasks they are trying to complete. Although it can be said that twitter creates an unnecessary distraction, but so does every other social networking site, twitter tries to reduce the time spent on the internet, and it does so somewhat successfully.
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