In reality though, Twitter can be very useful. As it is discussed in another video we watched in class, "Twitter in Plain English," Twitter allows people to stay in touch with people by seeing what they're doing in their daily lives. I think people really do appreciate this. It allows us to close the gap between relatives and such. I'm sure, for example, that while I'm away at college, my mom would love to have something like that to stay in touch with me and know what I'm always doing. Fortunately for me, she's not very good with technology. Despite what the creators of this Flutter video may think, many people do value Twitter, and are capable of saying what needs to be said in these 140 characters.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Is Twitter really pointless?
The Flutter video was certainly humorous in its critique of Twitter, however I find that the argument it made may not in fact be true. It was obvious that the video was just constantly poking fun at Twitter and its extreme characteristics, one in particular being the short length of its posts. However, Flutter posts were limited to 26 characters while Twitter is 140. Though I realize exaggeration was the goal, I feel that it went too far. Ultimately the argument of the video is that Twitter is a pointless use of technology, that it goes to far in limiting characters and giving unwanted information. And it assumes that the viewer will agree with this perspective in order to find humor in it.
I really like the fact that you connected flutter to people how it allows them to close the gap. I feel like your examples fits perfect in my life. Parents complain often because their children do not update their college lives. Because there is internet web site, flutter, people are able to communicate especially between parents-children relationship. In addition, I think it is really funny because my parents lack not only with their English skills, but technology skills as well. But taken as a whole, I think flutter is not bad after all.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you on the point that the Flutter video's attack on Twitter's post length (140 characters) is not the strongest argument made in the video. Twitter has a 140 character limit in its posts because the point of the site was to differ from other blogs by being a site that allows user to share small pieces of information about where they are and what they are doing. If users want to post something longer, then they are on the wrong site. I feel like the makers of the Flutter video put the 26 character joke in there just to add to the humor of the video; however, I do think they have a viable argument about this generation's demand for instant and on the go access to information. This is represented by the iPhone app and the Flutter glasses in the video. These make a stronger argument since they attack society as a whole, but I do believe the 26 character limit of Flutter was an important contributor to the comedy of the video and helped get their other mains points across.
ReplyDeleteYou brought up some good points about how flutter mocks the limit of 140 characters twitter places on its tweets. However, despite watching the "Twitter in Plain English" video, I still can not find a valid reason to use twitter. There is simply not enough time in a day to spend hours reading tweets. If you were only receiving tweets from your parents or people you know in person, then I would be more inclined to agree with you. However, with the constant bombardment of tweets from just the 10 random things we were required to select for this class, I find it overwhelming to read all of them.
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