Online seems almost chocked full of instant gratification. You can twitter your thoughts, tumblr your findings and pownce your files with friends. I have to admit I have fallen for 2 main forms of instant gratification. Other forms have come and gone like beta flotsum and jetsum along the shore of my email account. At times they seemed good looking strangers that lured me with shiny time sucking distraction. However, none have stuck as much as twitter and tumblr for me. I’ll note here that whilst I did use it, for me pownce never stuck around, I had a lot of issues with their AIR application on my powerbook, I may try it with my new machine at some point but it has so far failed to stick as much as twitter.
Getting it out there
Humans are by nature communicators. From the days of cave drawings on the wall through to now there is a need to say what is on our mind - to ‘get out there’ what’s in your head. As a freelancer I don’t have the day to day interaction you get when working in an office or studio. Of course, we’ve got skype and IM but there is something about getting a quick link, thought or something out there. Beyond the two way interaction these instant gratifications fill the gap of getting out what is in your mind without any feedback, sure we have @you twitters but the nature is not a conversation it’s a single traffic statement.
It’s getting loud in here
The downside and upside of this instant gratification is that whilst I find them attractive so do others. My day is intersperced by other’s releases online. For many this has been why they’ve turned away from these applications. The way I deal with it is by at times not even having it on - there is no twitter law that says ‘thou shalt keep it on all day’. If I am focusing on work twitter never gets put on, if I feel more like having this blow by tweet status interspersing my day it’s on - seems fairly simple to me.
Being pointless is the point
Some will argue that using such instant gratification services is similar to knitting cobwebs - in the end pointless as a cobweb jumper just won’t make it through the washing machine. The thing is that in itself is sort of a point for me. A blog post to me has more of a sense of permenance. Don’t get me wrong I am not under some illusion that my twitters and tumbles are not ‘out there’. They are however, fleeting moments and I like to think my blog post are less of that nature. Whilst I have in the past agonised for days stewing a blog post, my tweets bypass my logical part of my brain and go straight to my keyboard.
The danger of logic bypasses
My above point of liking the fact my logical brain being the catch the stupid thing, - the bit that goes ‘erm no that’s about as good as chocolate teapot’ - also is a major problem with instant outlets. Tumblr really doesn’t fall into this danger though, whilst it is instant there is the added benefit of a delete button and a more ‘oh dear did I say that’ pause is allowed. Two facts that are frequently forgotten about twitter are:
- Twitter does not have a delete button
- Twitter is online for all to see
I’ve done it myself, hit the send button and then muttered various sailouresque insults. Granted, mine have been of the ‘dear lord where did you learn to spell’ and ‘what the that made no sense even to me’ variety. I’ve seen more than one case of the ‘twitteropsies’ along with a few bad cases of ‘tweet in mouth’.
We all like the water cooler
In offices it’s often the ‘water cooler’ (this stands for any gathering place usually oddly enough near a tap or coffee making area) that gets the most gossip action. People have a habit of migrating to the nearest watering hole for a good old chin wag. In this day and age many of us don’t have a water cooler. I’ve tried talking to the dogs whilst making cups of coffee but sadly it seems to not have such a gratification - it’s one thing gossiping but a whole lot better gossiping with.
Online twitter and even tumblr to a certain extent, serve the purpose of a water cooler. They make the day go by more and connect you with others. I can see what cool video x just found, I can read about what y is doing. This all connects us whilst for the person on the other end of the gratification, it releases. This connect and release is something as human’s we need to keep going through the day.
There’s no law you have to have Twitter on all day? Oh, well, I have, actually, but at work, for instance, it’s often buried under tonnes of other windows.
I do like the water cooler idea. I’ve heard it used in terms of elearning, even: a place where the matter you’ve all just absorbed in solitude can be re-digested together.
Oh, and I think Twitter does have a delete button (on the site at least). Your message disappears from your stream, although the risk remains when people’s pages have refreshed or feeds have already caught the tweet.