Monday 9 February 2009

All Atwitter?

Matt Brady has helpfully introduced a debate about the use of social networking medium Twitter which seems to be sparking off in a pretty big way.

Opinions are divided over the future for this new technology and it's development potential.

Will it help to break down barriers and increase engagement, or will it just massively increase the banality and gossipy nature of our social dialogue?

Matt himself appears to be on the neophyte side of the argument - with Katharine Robinson - as evangelists for the social networking technology (both are signed up to attend forthcoming twestival events).

Ferocious exiled sarcast-o-matron Charlie Brooker traverses his instinctual nausea and becomes compelled by "the online equivalent of popping bubble wrap" - but then his gratitude does stem from an unexplained haggis-cooking urge...

Local councillor Glenn Goodall offers a note cautious scepticism while perhaps the greatest word of warning for those who are tempted into twittering addiction comes from Graham Jones, who notes the mass of popular interaction could soon be swallowed up by an irresistible tidal wave of commercialisation.

Does tweeting enable twitterers to spread their wings and fly away to explore the unknown pleasures and possibilities of an emerging digital universe, or will the new medium place a new shell of technological wizardry around our core humanity to alienate us still further from our real needs and desires?

It's over to you.

Update: z0man has asked an interesting question.

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