A great article about Twitter. Everything I wanted to say about it but so much better. Finally, a talented journalist is writing for NYTimes.
I guess people enjoyed their adolescence a lot more than I did mine if they want to remain stuck in it.
NYTimes: The High School We Can’t Log Off From
Clarissa's Blog 
Loaned this book from the library and wanted to ask you whether it’s good:
“The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be” by Moises Naim
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Sounds interesting
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Reblogged this on James' Ramblings.
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Fascinating! I’d never thought about social media in this way. Makes sense, though.
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Great article. I’ve said for years that the promise of social media is to allow you to spend your entire adult life in middle school, which is exactly why I’ve never even remotely understood the appeal. Once was enough for me.
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I always thought of it as all the fun of a small town with none of the support, which is more accurate.
“Enjoy” and “stuck” are oxymoronic in this instance because being mentally 16 but having the body of a 70 year old is quite distressing.
Anxious affirmation junkies go to Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, not Twitter. This, understandably, is difficult for the aged.
I’m sure if you were feeling particularly theoretical you could link the average age of a twitter user with the Great Recession and the socio-economic trends of delaying “adulthood” markers? (Assuming these numbers aren’t bollocks inflated by dead, inactive or bot accounts.)
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I don’t post on twitter, but I follow a lot of people to get my news. I haven’t found anything better for developing real-time local news. Last week, there was a brush fire less than a mile from our place, which we wouldn’t have known about or prepared for if it weren’t for twitter updates from local fire departments. There was a big fire close to us last year, too, and twitter helped a lot then.
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Twitter can be pretty useful for providing quick information and news. It’s tragically awful for conducting meaningful debates. Kids in high school at least are forced to behave while in class.
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I think news is where Twitter is at its most pernicious. Because of limited space, there is usually a short tag and then a link. I have seen too many cases where the text at the link in no way supports what the tag states. Most people have no time or patience to carefully analyze the text at the link, so all they are left with is the manipulative, screamy tag. And that’s where the manipulation happens.
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