When I came
across the demographics from 2010 about the usage of Twitter and Facebook, I
got to thinking about what each of their purposes are and if they are in
competition. Are there contradictions between the two? What about the
contradictions between interpersonal communication and the communication that
is going on within Facebook and Twitter.
Last week I
attended a presentation given by a representative from Twitter, and he touched
on the topic of whether or not they are in competition with Facebook. He
explained that there really is no competition because Twitter is interest based
and Facebook is more based on your social circle and who you are friends with.
He made a good point because if you think about it, do you really know EVERYONE
that you follow on twitter? More times than not, you don’t know who you are
following on twitter. For example, I follow UW-Madison. I don’t know who is
writing these tweets, but I am interested in what’s going on with UW-Madison.
This is different compared to Facebook because everyone who I interact with on
Facebook, I have some sort of personal connection to. Whether or not it’s a
friend from high school, class or college I know who they are and have most
likely met them at least once. So if Facebook and Twitter are not in
competition with each other, who are they in competition with?
In my
opinion they are in competition with inter-personal communication in the
offline world. Shouldn’t we know if someone is in a relationship because they
called to tell us? Shouldn’t we be informed that someone got into the
University of their choice by them running over to our house to celebrate?
Since when is it okay to write on your cousins “wall” who you haven’t talked in
a few months, instead of calling them? I guess I am asking these questions
because I wonder how far the online world will take us. I worry that we may
start to loose the value of interpersonal communication due to media. I am
guilty of using both of these social networks a lot, and don’t get me wrong
they are fun and easy to use, but where do we draw the line?
Within the
next few weeks I am going to focus on the contradictions between how Facebook
and Twitter have interfered with interpersonal communication in the offline
world, which is what our world used to be built on before the online world came
to be. I will be discussing contradictions between what is trending in the
print newspapers vs what people are talking about on Facebook and Twitter, how
relationships suffer or thrive from online social media use, along with many
other interesting topics! Check back next week!
This is a really interesting point. I also use both Twitter and Facebook quite frequently and it's sort of surprising that they aren't in competition with each other even though many in the general population would assume they are. I like your idea that these sites are really in competition with the other interactions that we have in the 'real world'. Whether or not the competition will continue is still up in the air but I'm definitely interested in seeing what you discover about the effects that social media has on relationships.
ReplyDeleteSome friends and I were just recently taking about Facebook and Twitter with some people feeling that there is no point in having a Twitter because Facebook was a lot more effective to them. I have a Twitter account, but don't really use it at all because I don't get as much enjoyment out of it as my Facebook account and could see how they wouldn't really be in much competition. Another thing that came up was not that people used Twitter over Facebook, but that they actually linked them together and so it was as if they had combined e-mail accounts and they could just get so much more information in one area.
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