Twitter

Twitter is in everyone’s mind. Everybody is tweeting, even grandfathers and Obama. People feel the need to keep their followers updated about everything even though it does not interest them the least. Everything has to be written down, manifested on one’s Twitter account. “ohhh my god – a big jiant spider just crawled on my pillow!!!!!! Arghhh omg omg omg ewwww omg!!!!!!!!!!!” Nobody is interested in such news, but people have to post that anyways. That somehow explains that a new word concerning twitter has been invented. TPS, tweets per second, indicate how many tweets have been posted on a certain event. This is quite disturbing, because that means there are a lot of these tweets. As an example, Beyoncé’s performance at the MTV VMAs had 8868 TPS. Almost 9000 people a second (!) were talking about Beyoncé online! Don’t they have more important things to do?

Social networks could become a problem in the future. People talk to their friends through their accounts on Twitter and Facebook. They don’t call them and tell them what happened. They have to inform everyone in their “hemisphere”. It goes that far that people are addicted to these websites. If you keep some people away from Facebook for one day, they will go nuts. People lose their social skills. Smartphones allowed them to update their status or their tweets anytime they want to. They no longer need a computer for it. Therefore, people cannot sit face to face at a table and talk. They don’t know how to communicate with each other without these virtual platforms.

Nevertheless, social networks also have some benefits. I have to admit that I use them too. Facebook helps me to keep in touch with family and friends back in Switzerland. I use twitter only as a follower, with the words from the article: “Paying attention to those people [who are hyperconnected].” Therefore, it is only some kind of news channel for me.

We are not allowed to neglect dangers that can be held by social networks. People need to use them cautiously. Further on they should not let it take control of their life. If it keeps them away from doing other things, something has to be done.