[Student Reporters] The Twitter Phenomenon

Ji Young Shim / <12th, Cerritos HS>

Waking up early on a Friday morning, I rolled across my bed and grabbed my cell phone from the nightstand. I soon discovered that one of my friends had been biking to Seal Beach for the last hour, another is working on summer assignments at home, and Ashton Kutcher is heading over to a photo shoot. All of this happened within seconds, and I was still bundled up in my blanket.

I use a social networking website called Twitter, a free, rapidly-expanding micro-blogging website that enables its users, or tweeters, to receive and publish “tweets” - 140-character messages - from computers or cell phones. Such tweets range from music recommendations and breakfast updates of friends, family members, or celebrities to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa‘s review of the National Clean Energy Summit.

Ever since its public launch in August 2006, Twitter has quickly attracted a number of users. In fact, in the past year, the number of users has increased by 900 percent. Martha Stewart, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Lance Armstrong, Shaquille O’Neal, and President Barack Obama are just few of the many who have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon.

Gone are the days of FDR‘s fireside chats and radio addresses. Instead, we have President Obama tweeting at us to support his plan for health insurance reform and posting useful links to articles better explaining his policy.

Officially the third most popular social network, Twitter differs from Facebook and Myspace in that its primary purpose is not to keep in touch with friends from the past, but to receive daily updates from people you are currently involved with. “It’s a constant conversation you have with everyone you want to hear from,” said Kathie Chang, a freshman at Boston College.

Furthermore, while Facebook and Myspace appeal most to adolescents and students, Twitter has a steady fan base among older users. According to Nielsen Online, 25% of all Twitter users are over 50 years old.

Of course, along with fanatic tweeters exist anti-Tweeters. They claim that Twitter is a “stalker‘s dream come true,” giving away too much personal information. Some say that Twitter is simply another distracting, overrated fad that will soon disappear.

Indeed, I, too, had my doubts at first. However, tweets from friends, relatives, celebrities, and famous politicians alike gave me real-life glances at their lives and made me feel strangely intimate with them. Twitter also enabled me to join in on real-time, world-wide conversations on topics dealing with the conflicts in Iran or the untimely death of the King of Pop Michael Jackson. All of this had branched out from a single, four-worded question asked at every log-in: “What are you doing?”

Thus, whether Twitter will actually disappear from the face of earth or not in a couples years down the road is not what matters. More important to note is the undeniable fact that Twitter has brought with it extraordinary and at times rather unexpected results.

In fact, an anticommunist uprising in Moldova last month was entirely organized through Twitter. Celebrity tweeters such as Ashton Kutcher have campaigned for charitable organizations and causes through Twitter. Furthermore, local businesses have found great success and fame through their well-managed usage of Twitter.

With all of this in mind, there is no doubt that Twitter is indeed re-shaping the way of communication and social networking in today‘s world, whether you like it or not.