Twitter Nation: A Defense and Rebuke of Chronic Online Oversharing

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I love Twitter. I really do. But I can’t help but think that it is leading us down the inexorable path to excessive navel gazing.

Now I’m not saying that Twitter isn’t useful, or interesting, or a great way to chronicle everything from breaking political news to gathering protesters in Iran to the latest trip to Whole Foods. DKC Public Relations counsels our clients to use Twitter to build buzz around an announcement, engage a community online or comment on the news of the day. But I fear that a generation raised on reflexive self-reflection and schooled in the mantra of continuous self-improvement could become addicted to the thrill of seeing our Tweets up in lights.

Reality TV was our first foray into the idea that banal, ordinary lives were somehow more interesting when put on camera, set to a decent soundtrack, and broadcast to millions. We were mesmerized by Real World, Survivor, Biggest Loser, Keeping up with the Kardashians, and American Idol. Heck we even cried when the meerkats died in Meerkat Manor, and when not even Morgan Freeman’s soothing baritone could keep those adorable penguins safe. But the secret to compelling reality television is creative editing and off camera cajoling of the “cast” by producers hell bent on the next fight, emotional breakdown or drunken mess spilling out and into our living rooms.

But five plus years into this phenomenon, we’re now following ordinary people (and celebrities participating in the unabridged version of Us Weekly’s “They’re Just Like Us”) on Twitter, and competing to amass the most friends on Facebook. But I can’t help but think of the proverbial tree that falls in the forest. What if there’s no one there to hear it? Worse, what if it’s not worth listening to in the first place?

Take this tweet from @aplusk (that’s Ashton Kutcher to most of us): “chupa is you suck in portuguese RT StephenRWill haha what is it??” Did we need – or want – to know this?

The historical lines between edited and unfiltered content have been blurred, which proponents of the Twitterizing of everything hail as the ultimate democratization of information, but I would say just makes my job as an information consumer more complicated. Sure, I’m happy to stumble upon the diamond in the online rough – Brian Stelter’s TV Newser circa Towson State, Pandora, Sporcle – but I also think the organized media world has evolved over the years for reasons other than just an inability to share content as easily as we can today. The truth is, some people are better at filtering compelling information than others – whether Ashton Kutcher likes it or not.

Which is why I’m amazed and grateful for the people who follow me on Twitter. I’m not sure why they care about my reflections on riding Amtrak, or making beet salad for dinner, or pondering how to promote a new product. If not for them, I would be writing those 140 characters for my own gratification, my Twitter feed nothing more than a personal diary that I’ll look back on with chagrin, like that locked leather bound book I had in third grade.

Krista Pilot is Senior Vice President of DKC Public Relations and Integrated Marketing

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