Response to Twitter Articles

I can see some pros and cons of Twitter - I think it's potential as a effective tool for discourse amongst a large and diverse group of people is huge. The obvious problems is geting through all of the irrelevant "junk" information that people post about themselves. I began using Twitter, but like my Facebook updates, I enjoyed it initially, but after a while, posting personal updates became meaningless to me. Like the subject in Thompson's article, "who cares what I am doing, every hour of the day...Even I don't care." But many people have found a use for and a love for Twitter, so more power to them. I believe that Postman would have a hard time with Twitter as it just adds to the clutter of information that needs to be sorted through to find meaningful dialogue. And in his mind, information gluts lead to "the problem of diminished social and political potency." (p. 69). Twitter is certain to add to the problem of information glut. Will it be worth it in the long run to put up with the glut in the pursuit of meaningful discourse? I think the answer for me personally is yet to be determined.

I do think it's great that the users of Twitter are the ones who came up with so many of the Twitter enhancements and apps. For people to be improving an online tool, and then sharing that with others seems pretty cool to me.

I also think about the political consequences of tools like these - the use of Twitter to organize protests in China, and to get news out of Iran, a country with a state-run media. These events demonstrate that governments who want to control the access of information within their borders are going to have to figure out how to deal with these tools.