I’ve heard it said that the one thing all Americans share is baseball, or apple pie, or maybe Wal-Mart. Well, I disagree. The one thing that unites all true Americans is an incessant need for appreciation and acknowledgement. The modern vehicle that propels this common conceit from fad to art form? Twitter.? Twitter is just one of the many “social networking” sites online these days, just the newest on the heels of Facebook, Myspace and Friendster. However, Twitter differs from the rest in one way. It is the first that caters solely to our most narcissistic moods. For those of you who have no idea what a Twitter page is, here it is in a nutshell: it’s a site where you can post what you’re doing, feeling, or really anything that pops into your mind at any moment of the day. The idea is that your “tweets” will pop up on your friends’ home pages where they will read, analyze and comment on every piece of your life.?? Twitter adds another component that other sites lack. As a Twitter user, you can sign up to receive tweets from people you haven’t met but who are an integral part of your life: celebrities. You can turn your twitter feed into an online tabloid and read Miley Cyrus’s, Heidi Montag’s and Justin Timberlake’s every thought, no matter how trivial.?? These celebrity twitter updates are strange and somehow mimic the everyday American’s need for attention. These people, who already have all eyes upon them, somehow feel the need to deposit every insignificant thought onto their web pages. Such is the same for the regular Twitter user. Even though they go through their lives in a relatively normal fashion, some people constantly need to be reminded that others care for them.?? Twitter is a special kind of sharing. Unlike sites like Facebook, which use different modes of multimedia like chat options, groups, causes, games and quizzes, Twitter is just you and your thoughts. You and your computer. You trust that someone out there will read what you write and actually care. It’s a new weapon for our generation, folks: the power to walk out of your house in the morning and know in your heart that your mother, neighbor, and roommate have read your tweet and actually give a crap.?? Twitter users, take a moment to think. Do you care when someone posts that he took his third shower of the day? Or when she washed the dishes? Or when he missed the bus? If not, then, take a step back. I know your life must seem amazingly interesting to you, but to me? You’re the third guy on my Twitter feed who missed first period today. Thea Raymond-Sidel is a two-year Lower from Iowa City, IA. traymondsidel@andover.edu
