In Defense of Twitter

The utility of Facebook status updates is obvious. To avoid an in-depth discussion on a phenomenon that is approaching a state of ubiquity, suffice it to say that it’s simply “group SMS operated on a global scale, with or without a phone.” The usefulness of Twitter, however, was put in question during this class’ last session. “What is the non-public figure’s stake (what is the value that he derives) from sharing his ‘personal tweets’ to the world at large?,” the professor asked. Considering that I use Twitter more than Facebook, the question surprised me. And after thinking about it some more, I reached a personal conclusion - an answer, which may prove to be wrong, or perhaps unpopular.

To a non-public figure, maybe there is no value to a single, unimportant tweet. Save for the obvious need for self-expression (read: a little vanity), his thoughts about the weather, the World Cup, or the kind of fungus growing between his toes holds no significant value to himself. In fact, information of this nature might find a more willing audience in Facebook. At least there, there is a ready potential for conversation, recognition, and attention - a virtual replacement for human interaction. But if we accept the premise that tweets by a non-public figure are useless to the author himself, considering that it merely mimics a more definitive social network, why is Twitter still growing both locally and abroad? Why is Juan de la Cruz still tweeting? To say that it’s merely another fad or that it’s a minimized version of Facebook, is, to quote a former Justice of the Supreme Court, “not intellectually satisfying.”

I guess what I’m trying to say is that there must be a reason. Why does a “nobody” share his thoughts, unimportant as they are, with a world that could care less? If I were to proffer a guess, I think the value is not in this person’s tweet per se... but his access to all the other tweets, the billions of messages being shared in real-time by his “co-nobodies” around the world. The authored tweet, insignificant and unimportant as it is, is actually his contribution and not his gain. Thus, if Juan de la Cruz steps on cow-dung and voices his frustration of it, if Maria Clara hates her shampoo and tweets about it, these details form part of the collective - a universe of statements made by nobodies and somebodies around the world. When a non-public figure tweets, his 140-character message forms part of this global pool of thought. Is it useful? I think so. The value of one tweet may be insignificant, even laughable, but the value of a billion searchable messages whose contents stem from ordinary people around the world, which are to be archived by no less than the US Library of Congress? I think the value here is immense. Considering that we’re nearing a point where searches can be filtered by location, the value of Twitter could, despite it's present cult-like appeal, multiply exponentially.

On a local level, a search on “EDSA” or “Katipunan” on Twitter to determine the amount of traffic in the area would certainly be helpful. (Scratch that, if I knew traffic conditions on individual roads based on motorist complaints every 15 minutes, I’d even pay for the service.) A search on “Sony Vaio Z” could give me an idea of how others around the world view the laptop I’m thinking of buying. When I tweet about how a certain dish in some restaurant gave me gas the other day... it might be useless in the grand scheme of things but perhaps the same information could prove useful to a would-be customer or the manager of the same restaurant. This, I think, is Twitter’s importance as a platform: useless information by countless nobodies is converted to something of value. Thus, where Google has become the modern highway of the web, Twitter (as used by nobodies) is swiftly becoming an aggregation of online dirt-roads - unintentionally made but quite useful when found.