reality BYTES
By Mark Little
Twitter is like a night in a pub packed with the most connected people in the world. The conversation is often shallow, self-referential and predictable. Smart people like hearing themselves talk.
But that doesn’t matter.
Eventually, you’ll discover something in that conversation that makes you better informed and more connected than those unlucky enough not to be part of the Twitter family.
It is a democratic gathering of opposites. The celebrity engages with the celebrity-hater; the politician gets stuck in with the critic; the liberal just can’t stop talking to the conservative.
People on Twitter will also make you laugh. A lot.
The great myth about Twitter is that it is restricted to 140 characters.
But tweets can also carry links to blogs, newspapers, magazines, TV stations and photo agencies. Once you work out who to follow, Twitter becomes your personal news wire.
It is also your own personal newspaper. If you can offer the right links and a challenging voice, then others will follow you. You will create your own audience.
Twitter has made me a better journalist. There’s always someone out there who knows something I don’t, or who has a more authentic and immediate view of something which interests me. It is a family of eye-witnesses.
It is my first and last port of call now. It has become my own personal newswire, thanks to the links it provides to unlimited sources. It is also easy to filter and cross-check.
I operate on the assumption that it’s not what you say on Twitter that matters, but who you follow.
One of the guilty pleasures of Twitter is listening to people who don’t get it. It sounds like the nervous, mirthless laugh of a landlocked crowd mocking the approaching tide. Get in the boat – there’s room for everybody.
Mark Little is a former presenter of RTE’s Prime Time. He is currently on a year’s leave of absence from RTE to pursue a project on digital media and global journalism. He can be followed at www.twitter.com/marklittlenews
