To begin with my argument I must start at some basics. Think of humans as machines. Humans are preprogrammed to do what "feels good". The whole of the human existence exists around this notion of feeling good. To describe feeling good I would best define it as the degree of positive feelings is greater than the degree of negative feelings. You can't deny that everything done in the human existance is to feel good. Those times when humans do things that don't feel good they think they are sacrificing feeling good for the time being to feel good in the future. The whole human existance is wrapped around this very notion.
To continue my point I will say that all things in lifes are tools that human's wield to "feel good". Everything before you in your day to day routine are things laid out for you to feel good. This is why we see people consuming alcohol, drugs, why music and games are so popular, why sex is so popular. It's all about "feeling good"; even school, social networking(and hold on I'll get to twitter), killing, going to church every sunday to whisper to imaginary beings, etc. All of these are conduits with which we try to gain positive emotions that overpower the negative ones.
Now finally getting to social networking and more specifically twitter - these too are tools with which human beings use as tool to "feel good". There are two main ways that people use these tools.
A) They use them to try and gain attention through people interested in them. If you notice every social network is way for people to try to grab their slice of individuality in the world. It feels good to be unique and something different, someone special. Humans struggle most of thier lives to try and carve identities of themselves into other people they meet, they want the attention and as I said it feels good. This is why those stupid "fan of" and quizzes and shit are popular on facebook - people are trying to be unique. So twitter is basically "here this is me, look at me here I am, I'm cool, I'm unique, I'm living" - people want that kind of attention so they use shit like twitter to gain it.
B) The people who are reading these "special snowflake" people's twitters are trying to gain social advantage. I hear a lot about popular people like CEO of google, and business, politics, sports, etc all their blogs are interesting people want to read them. People are not really 'interested' in that person, they just want to be unique like them - they envy them and so they pick up ways to inspire to be like them. They get ideas they use as their own or incorporate them into themselves - they read political blogs because political knowledge gives them advantage in their social circumstances - etc apply these to all other genres/concepts. They read blogs because they confer advantages for our social world. Basically humans feast on the biproduct of others just to gain small advantages in every day life.
So long story short, people don't give a fuck about what you or any one else twitter about, they just read it to gain ways to "feel good" through increased social knowledge. But the good news is you get to "feel good" in return that you are getting attention from others, that you can be a unique and beautiful snowflake in a world that is so full of fish its a feeding frenzy that everyone is a part of and no one knows about.
The same knowledge can be applied to why I am typing this and sending it to you. My socially conditioned self sais "I am doing it for your benefit" - but I tore away my socially conditioned self long ago. I understand that the reason I am telling you this is to feel good. I feel good that at least you can understand mostly what I am saying. I feel good that what I have said puts me on a level above 99.9% of the population. Hey look just by typing this to you I've used it all as a tool to establish myself as unique and special because I need that attention as it feels good, because I am human too.
Hopefully that mostly made sense, for me Twitter is just more bread crumbs into the feeding frenzy. I understand everyones need to feel good, I understand it all, I am not condemning anyone that if they use social networking they are scum. Only that no one truley understands human nature, understands why social networking is blossoming so crazily as it is. I play video games all day and I know I just do it for the feel good programming in my human nature.
So if you're twittering just remember that you're doing it to feel good, and people who read your twitter are doing it feel good, and when you read other's twitters you are trying to gain social advantages to feel good. And just chew on those bread crumbs and enjoy your life bBecause once you realize what human nature is all about theres no turning back: you either go sociopathic and kill people, or you embrace it as I have.
Chew away, and sometime maybe watch the pond from afar and see all the 7 billion fish swarming and feeding on the bread crums, and test the waters - maybe throw a few bread crumbs in yourself to see what happens to the closer fish. Thats how I get my kicks once in awhile anyways
Reuben
