A Problem with Twitter
I am at the NECC conference in San Antonio. It is amazing to see so many faces of people I connect with through Twitter and our social networks.
This year, I am laptop-less. In fact, I am only posting this using my room-mates’ laptop while he is partying somewhere downtown about now. I have spent the past few days at the nation’s largest technology educator conference without access to a portable computer. It has been frustrating on a few levels but really positive on many others.
I have been regulated to taking notes with PEN and PAPER!! Not only does this help me focus more on the speaker but it also gives me a greater chance to really PEOPLE WATCH. And people are amazing to watch in these large groups.
The most amazing thing to me is the use of the technology by our technology education peers that makes it appear to something similar to paparazzi stalking a star. The “heavy hitter” celebrities of the blog world are following each other and sitting in the front few rows. They then Twitter, Ustream, and even blog about what is happening while it is happening.
Now to the audience participating globally in the conference, I can see how helpful this is. Its opening the conference and discussion to others in the world wide classroom.
But to be in the room and watching - its really distracting! People aren’t just discussing the topics. They are discussing their plans for dinner. They are discussing their inside jokes. They are posting commentary about the commentary. Some try to be more witty than the previous post and the conversations jump off the topics into their own little satires.
In our keynote this morning, I had a woman sitting next to me who was posting her blog. She was in Twitter. She was also adding to a discussion in Ustream. Meanwhile, those of us around her were distracted by the screen of her laptop seeing as the lights were dimmed for the video playing of the keynote. I watched her post about her experiences, watched as she answered emails, watched as she twittered to her friends about what they were doing in other areas of the state.
I didn’t see much conversation about the keynote. I didn’t see her really noticing that her tick-tack clicking of her nails during the presentation was disrupting the crowd around her. I don’t think she cared. She was in the Web 2.0.
I left the keynote today with the idea to watch the audiences more than the presentations. And while many conversations were on task and on point, there was still this strange race to be the first to post the information. People are taking pictures, filming, streaming, and blogging it seems to be the first to post the content. They want to be the source for the information first. It reminds me of a favorite media-news site I check daily called Ain’t It Cool news. Media news is posted with a commentary section for each item. The first few posts are the people visiting the items to post “FIRST” so they can get the recognition of being noted as first-posters. Paparrazzi? Nope. Webucators! First to Tweet. First to UStream. First to Flickr!
My questions:
What happens when we allow the social networking on the computer overpower the social gathering?
When do we give up meeting and sharing ideas locally when we get together locally only to be sharing those ideas with people in other rooms, states, or countries?
What is are the new rules or etiquette guidelines for social networking in social gatherings? or Are there any?
Does the social network become the new society?
I close with this. I attended a “Twitter dinner” last night. This was a nice dinner joining people from the Twitter-verse together. The dinner was great and we got to talk to one another. We hugged and shared that common feeling of knowing that we are on the front-line. Its interesting to meet the people you don’t see everyday but are in the same boat as you and to greet them with a hug. First meeting in person and hugging each other because we are in the trenches as comrades.
The party was swelling and then circled about as a group. People began taking out cell phones and Twittering while we were in the group. Then they began talking about the Twitter conversations. The social gathering was now guided by the conversations taking place from people not in the room. The party was over for many of us at that point. It was like watching people talking about a party I wasn’t a part of in the party that I was a part of. I was in the room with these people but they were in a party taking place in their cell phones.
That’s just one issue with Twitter. I guess the other is that it is constantly down…..
Find me there - mradkins
