I’ve discussed my hesitancy to jump on the twitter train on my blog before here. But with the huge buzz about the “twitter revolution” in Iran (probably the biggest buzz in new media this last week), I felt it a good time to revisit it. A professor of New Media – Clay Sharky has a short piece on new media and companies over on salon.com. Most of what he said is just rundown of stuff you probably already know. But he said something (see video below) that I don’t hear enough of: that the speed of these new platforms increases the emotional role of news and communication. This is along parallel lines to another study I read a few months ago over at Science Daily on how they found that “higher” emotions take more time to set in. “For some kinds of thought, especially moral decision-making about other people’s social and psychological situations, we need to allow for adequate time and reflection,” said first author Mary Helen Immordino-Yang of the USC Rossier School of Education.

Another emotional and instantaneous type of response can be found in crowds. People in crowds resort to violence and other actions you would not normally find exhibited by the individuals. I am no fan of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but many in Iran are and turned out in support of him at rallies of their own. Events that were barely covered in western media. We should not be so quick in western media to publish the one sided story of an oppressed people in Iran when it could be a much more divided situation that splits the younger and more educated populace with an older and more religious conservative voter (an overly simplified split). In a revolution sometimes the large groups and crowds can be manipulated emotionally from both sides to go down a path to confrontation. In this case I would argue that people are correct in that twitter is a driving force behind this (but not to say revolutions require twitter for they’ve been going on for millennia without the benefit of tweeting). But the speed of media and our reaction to it is increasing the volatility around the world and not just in Iran.

An article on the BBC news discusses boring data on food and transportation spending but then delves into a deeper inquiry into how the effect of more discretionary spending (as a percentage of our overall income) is effecting economic volatility. Something I am far more interested in. Another instance of emotional response to a “crisis” would be the swift drop in stock prices and the government response with bail outs and stimulus funding. Now we’ve apparently hit bottom in this recession with only a fraction of the money spent. But our government has a huge and growing balance sheet of stimulus spending that may not even be needed. If only congress and the fed could have waited a few more months. I think we need to reassess the idea that markets reflect overall value accurately and instead mark that they represent perceived value that is easily manipulated by emotional response to data. Just look at the wildly swinging oil price for a great example. Maybe in a only half sarcastic way I ask: Do we blame the stock crash on an emotional twitter and blog feed overload of the over leveraged Lehman Brothers? I’m not going to go that far. But to conclude I think we need to look into how the increasing speed and reaction time of outside events is effecting our decisions. And to reassess how crazily obsessed we become with twitter.

P.S. Due to a busier workload doing freelance graphic design and web development, I’ve decided to publish more longer form posts but less frequently on my blog; this is also a reflection of my thoughts above.

I really don’t see the point in twitter. One thing I find increasingly disturbing online and in public discourse is the complete lack of depth in opinions and discussion. While the ability to search and investigate a huge expanse of information online is something that would be impossible before the internet. Current online discourse is not becoming more informed or researched. I don’t want to know a blurb about something I want to know the background. Twitter furthers the idea that someone can and should put forth opinions, updates, and ramblings without thinking them through.In increasingly blunt, undefined ways. The process of writing one’s ideas and thoughts out is one part of developing them and twitter lacks that. 140 characters is to put it super bluntly, ripe for uninformed dribble. I have never found something via twitter that actually interested me. Facebook status updates don’t interest me for the same reason. I read the NY times because they still have 8-12 page writeups. I’ve stopped reading the economist so much because they’ve focused on shorter, badly written, fluff articles. I’ve been moving around the econ blogs lately and finding a handful that really take the time to put forth their arguments using conventional writing styles of defining a position and backing it up, as well as analyzing competing arguments. One new blog I would like to mention is Scott Sumner’s The Money Illusion. While I like Greg Mankiw’s blog there is less depth in the ideas and arguments. Twitter in my mind is just another movement towards peoples desire for instant gratification. But instant gratification is boring, unhealthy, and uninformed. That’s why I like making pasta, why I am looking for a job that provides real thought and creative problem solving and not just a measly paycheck I currently receive for selling cupcakes. It’s why I enjoyed studying at NYU.

UPDATE 3/3/09: It looks like John Stewart reads my blog… Well probably not but at least he agrees with my take on twitter. via popwatch