The Work in Networking

Does Twitter threaten a healthy level of solitude? And what can 140 letters really tell us about so many characters?

I was recently at a conference where everyone was on Twitter. (Twitter is the latest social network on which people share what they’re thinking and feeling at any given moment with a set of committed “followers,” using no more than 140 characters. Good updates – “tweets” – tend to be pithy, insightful, opinionated, and self-revealing.)

Anyway, everyone was tweeting their little hearts out. They were doing the usual things people do at conferences (attending talks, networking over lunch, chatting in the halls) but they seemed unable to hold eye contact or watch a speaker for more than a minute or two before dropping into a dizzying flurry of iPhone finger pokes, updating their Twitter status. One woman was twittering in the voice of her dead cat, and would periodically stop as she imagined what the cat might be thinking from beyond; another man worried that his tweets might be taken out of context and used against him in an ongoing custody battle. But they persisted.

This was a good conference and these were well-meaning people with periodically insightful observations, but I couldn’t help but think about The Caine Mutiny as I watched them twitter. They were Captain Queeg, their iPhones were steel balls, and their tweets were as reassuring to them as Queeg’s eccentricities were to him. The story even ended similarly: just as the Caine mutinied under the stress of Queeg’s quirks, AT&T’s network eventually melted from all the tweeting and texting, and the twits fell silent.

Why couldn’t I twitter with them? I have an iPhone, a Twitter account, a Facebook profile, and I’ve spent years studying how people use technology in social settings. Why didn’t I participate, why didn’t I check my friends’ Twitter feeds, why had I never updated my Facebook status, and why had I even deleted my iPhone’s Facebook application just before coming to the conference?

Honestly, it’s tiring. Call it communication fatigue or relational over-work but I find much of it exhausting in ways I didn’t expect. First, I tend to compare myself to what my friends – 401 of them and counting! – are saying on Facebook and Twitter far too quickly and easily. I learn that “Susie ran 10 miles and feels great!”, “Sam baked yummy fresh bread,” and that Tom “finished yet another chapter of his dissertation!” and realize that I’m not running, baking or writing; all I’d been doing lately was reading Facebook and stewing over deadlines. It has sometimes taken real emotional work to remind myself that such comparisons are misplaced, that everyone’s situation is different.

Second, I tend to empathize a little too quickly. When my friend Walter updates his status with “I just can’t stop feeling sad!” or when Diane says “I got dumped. Again.” I can’t respond as some do by commenting “Cheer up, it’s almost Friday!” or “You go, girl!” My instinct instead is to call these people, to listen, and perhaps help. But because I can’t possibly do that with so many people, I tend to just carry their updates in my head day. I think “what could have possibly made Walter so sad?” but I don’t do anything about it because I could spend all day thoughtfully engaging with 401 updates.

This feels like a moment of personal evolution: Twitter and Facebook are teaching me relational limits. I don’t yet understand what these 140-character updates can or should mean to me and my friends. I’ve never updated my status because what could I possibly say to 401 people that would be pithy, insightful, self-revelatory, and sincere? Maybe I’m too much of an introvert, but protecting my solitude is becoming more important than defending my privacy. I don’t mind people knowing some things about me but I’m wary of knowing too much about them. I’m resisting this new kind of public, short-form literacy. It seems to mean collapsing relationships into too compact a form, saying one thing to too many people, and knowing only what 140 letters can tell me about far too many characters.

But maybe Captain Queeg can teach us a lesson. We thought he was crazy because he revealed so much of himself but perhaps he just hit the wrong balance between creativity and madness. Perhaps I’ll try tweeting, just to see how it feels.