I started worrying... is my brain being crippled by Twitter? Will my writing suffer because I can only process thoughts 140-characters at a time? Should I take a Twitter hiatus? But would I then need to take a Facebook hiatus? What about blogging? And what about Instagram, my newfound love?
A hiatus will not work. I sadly can't go a weekend without these things, let alone a month.
So my next thought, as I'm panting along down the trail, is Why? What is it about all these things that draws me in? What's the psychology behind it?
Get home. Take off muddy sneakers. Walk to computer. Google search "the psychology of Twitter."
The first result, an older article from PsychologyToday.com states:
At its worst, Twitter is an exercise in unconditional narcissism - the idea that others might actually care about the minutiae of our daily lives. I believe that this phenomena of micro-celebrity is driven by existential anxiety. I twitter, therefore I am. I matter. I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and, doggoneit, people like me!
Yes, yes, we can all agree that social media, in all forms, is dripping with narcissism. BUT— here's my but—what about its documentation value? Or its artistic worth? Or its power to spark curiosity and creativity?
Truth is, the journalist in me loves capturing and recording little glimpses of everyday happenings.
This morning I took the stairs instead of the elevator and I found this. Random, beautiful, and creepy at the same time because it led me to wonder... how on Earth did a single long-stem pink rose end up in a dirty stairwell of a downtown parking garage? Who dropped it, or threw it, and why? What's the story there?
There are stories everywhere—tiny fragments of life waiting to be shared. THAT (tinged with a bit of narcissism) is why I love these things we call social networks.
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