A couple of days ago I saw a blog post from February (Mike Stenhouse, Trampoline Systems) that declared that (paraphrasing) “Twitter has replaced Facebook for me. It gives me everything I want from Facebook: Presence (stream from my friends). But on Facebook, I have to login a few times a day – their walled garden. But with Twitter: 24/7 Presence!”
What is the numinous appeal of Presence!
Is it a kind of love? Entertaining distraction? Sense of connectedness? The emerging Global Brain? Celebration of both uniqueness and common humanness?
Why? 20 -100 messages in a day (more?) from 10 different people (more?), some close, many not, some brilliant, many not. Why is this so comforting, stimulating, welcome?
Well, for one thing – it is attention from people I care about (and maybe some others) that requires absolutely nothing in return. Pure appreciation. I see it, laugh, nod, puzzle, or ignore it because, y’know, I’m really in the middle of something else – in fact in the middle of several things, and I have only so many neurons. But fine, keep it coming – feed my spare cycles – and soul – with quirk, you-ness, and relationship.
Is this what it is? (I’m still figuring it out.)
100 Trillion Connections 