Twitter doesn't always get a good press amongst commentators on this blog. It is my impression that it is, in general, less in favour now than only a couple of years ago. So why use it is a good question.
I have two answers. One is that sometimes it is a way of sharing a stream of consciousness in a different way to that possible on a blog. My weekend tweets were examples of that, and they seemed to hit nerves.
There is another reason though, of which these two tweets are examples. I wrote them last night:
I was thinking about how to compress ideas into relatively simply statements at the time. 140 characters is a good discipline for that.
Neither tweet was flippant: both took some time to formulate. I happen to think they work. I would not have tried to condense the ideas in this way without Twitter. That, I suggest, is its main use.
Others may have different opinion, I know,
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I believe the 140 character limit is a throwback to SMS texts being limited to 160 characters. Additionally, I think, Twitter still has the ability to accept posts via text message so can still be used when 3G/4G isn’t available or blocked or a much simpler phone is the only thing available. Facebook used to be able to do so as well but not anymore.
One always remembers the classic statement “I’m sorry to write such a long letter – I didn’t have time to write a short one”!
The 140 character constraint does impose a real discipline, rather like the discipline imposed by the “haiku” format, though critics of Twitter will have placed me in “Pseuds’ Corner” for making such a comparison.
And the critics are right that Twitter can be awful; but, then, so can Facebook be, and the comments section for most Blogs – this one most definitely excepted.
On the plus side, the discipline of the 140 characters CAN force concentration of thought, as in your examples, Richard, while the ability to chain together a series of tweets on a theme resembles the successful attack of a boxer, raining decisive blows on his opponent, leading to a knockout.
The really persuasive point, though, is the fact that such conciseness of thought is precisely what is needed to convey complex ideas in an easily assimilatable form. Imagine, for example, your “social justice” tweets read out from a Party Conference platform as a clarion call to action! And they contain possible campaigning slogans, rather like Harold Wilson’s “the commanding heights” and “the white heat of technology”.
On which, returning to your latest pair of tweets, re care, competence and coherence – how I agree, adding in a fourth characteristic, that of wisdom.
I’m sick and tired of the search for, and desire for, “strong” government, and would swap “strong” government in an instant for a “wise” government, of which there have been precious few within living memory.
A book that is on my definite reading list for the near future is Archie Brown’s “The Myth of the Strong Leader”, though there’s little sign of such a Leader from any sector of the political scene, with the possible exception of Caroline Lucas.
I agree Andrew