Twitter? Educational? Same Sentence?

Earlier this year, the Twitterati were smitten with @MayorEmanuel, the fake account of the infamous Chicago mayoral candidate. The account was laced with profanity ("When I run for reelection, I'm having a motherfucking hand-shaking robot built.") and random hilarity ("Girl Scouts on Cottage Grove! I am going to fuck up this box of Samoas!") It was clearly fiction, and after almost 2,000 tweets, journalist Dan Sinker ended the ruse in February, the day after the real Emanuel won the election.

But the best part about @MayorEmanuel was not the profanity (entertaining), the target himself (easy pickings), or even the creativity of the writer behind it. It's not even that Sinker helped popularize a new type of short-form storytelling, with narratives spanning multiple tweets, a method I dissected in my blog Context back in March.

No, the best part was watching the fake Emanuel react in real time to real events -- pretty much the hallmark purpose of Twitter, yes, but Sinker took it to new heights. In his final day of posting, Sinker essentially live-tweeted the mayoral election results (through the lens of @MayorEmanuel, of course): "Axelrod's in with the early results: 51 motherfucking percent. Still a long night, but SUCK ON THAT, CHICO."

It wasn't exactly educational, but in the same way that Saturday Night Live and the Daily Show use humor to impart knowledge of current events, followers of @MayorEmanuel were likely some of the most informed voters in the history of a mayoral race. In between his ridiculous outbursts, the fake Emanuel kept tabs on the real Emanuel's schedule: "LAST DEBATE OF THE MOTHERFUCKING RACE, I MADE YOU MY BITCH." and "I am still 100 percent fucking positive that this debate would be way fucking better if we were using muppets." This, the real time component, is the basis of our fascination with Twitter, and the reason we spend hours and days of our lives following the thoughts and actions of favorite celebrities and writers and random Twitterati. It's real life, and it's sharing, but again, it's not necessarily educational.

This week I read a New York Times article about a guy who is reenacting World War II, in real time, via Twitter (@RealTimeWWII). Just fifteen minutes ago, the feed reported a "Russian ultimatum, now being read on Radio Helsinki: surrender by 3AM tomorrow or 'all cities & strategic centres will be destroyed.'" Other events, announcements, and even authentic documents (Soviet propaganda leaflet dropped on Helsinki this morning: "Throw away your guns, return to your homes...") are tweeted at a force of 40 per day. The Times article describes the intent of the author, 24-year-old Alwyn Collinson:

"Mr. Collinson said his goals are to educate his followers about the basic sequence of events and give a sense of what the war felt like to ordinary people who had no idea how it would end.

"'I still get dozens of tweets every day from people who say, 'I forgot I was following World War II, and I suddenly thought the Germans were about to invade Holland,' Mr. Collinson said. 'That’s exactly the effect I want: to convey the fear, the uncertainty, the shock. That’s what it was like for the people who lived through it.'"

And he's not alone -- there's one for the Civil War (@CivilWarwp), the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (@1948War), and even @ukwarcabinet, detailing Winston Churchill’s 1941 cabinet debates.

It's the kind of idea that could finally and intentionally hook high school history classes to Twitter. The WWII feed is being translated into multiple languages, and at the very least it's started discussions amongst historians. Of course, not all attempts are tactful: The Guardian shut down its @911tenyearsago after just 16 tweets.

The "I'm Getting Arrested" App

Should have planned ahead. via ENGLISHCLASS

 
Kids these days, always getting arrested and tweeting about it to their friends. But thanks to even newer technology, tweeting your legal troubles is hereby antiquated. Now there's an app for that.

It's pretty simple, really: You compose a text message in advance and pre-select your recipient list. Mom, Dad, best friend Larry, and your hair stylist, let's say. Then you head down to the local Occupy Wall Street protest -- there's one in almost every major city -- and participate in your favorite drum circle. As the police stuff you into the back of the squad car, you whip out your Android (the iPhone edition is being developed) and hit a button that sends your triumphant message of arrest to Mom, Dad, Larry, and the hair stylist. If the hair stylist is any good, she's reschedule tomorrow's appointment. If your parents are any good, they'll show up with bail.

What's next? Some other occasions ripe for a pre-loaded message at the click of a button:

- The stock market crashes. Recipient list: stock broker, mortgage broker, CC travel agent and Swiss banker.
- The birth of a child. Recipient list: family, friends, CC Santa and the College Board.
- Divorce. Recipient list: selections from your little black book.
- Stranded in Europe and need cash wired immediately. Recipient list: the entire address book.

I see brand development possibilities galore.

Dear Future Self: Facebook Photo Comments

Dear Future Self,

I thought it might be a good idea to publicly record some ideas for you to refer back to at some point in my current future and your current current. Because let's be honest, we all make mistakes, and sometimes we make them again. As George Bush said, fool me once...something or other.

Consider this your reminder to really think about what you comment on Facebook photos. What you said that was funny as a college freshman in 2005, when Facebook added the Photo app, is almost certainly not still funny now that you're in your mid-twenties. And since we supposedly continue to grow wiser as we grow older, it is likely that in five years, you will be five years smarter, and five years more embarrassed at the stupid shit you said five years ago.

Unless, of course, you're hysterical. Then please proceed. The rest of us need a laugh both now and in five years.

Smooches,

Brittany

P.S. I guess this goes for status updates too, but those were later and changed format so much that none of us really kept track or gave a damn.
P.P.S. Oh my God we all looked so young in 2005. 

Internet Ban Captain's Log: Entry 1

WANT. via Elena Santangelo's blog

My attempt last night at enforcing my new "One Hour a Day With No Internet" rule resulted in me falling asleep on top of my book. Note to self: When there are not screens on which to focus tired, weary eyes, sleep comes faster. The daily hour should thus not take place just before bed, in a darkened room, after a long day, as I lay on my stomach in my exceedingly comfortable bed.

It's a learning process, folks.

A Self-Enforced Internet Ban

via SoxFirst

The Internet is an invention that both exponentially economized productivity and also made productivity secondary. The siren call of Facebook,  the gravitational pull of Blogger, the thousands of Groupon-type emails in my inbox, just begging to be clicked and web-window-shopped. It's damn near inconceivable to attempt tackling a to-do list. The Internet Gods mock your to-do list. They laugh at your futile peasant ways. You are not getting anything done, and you know it.

This is a problem for me, this distraction. So I went to a coffee shop tonight to get some writing done, out of the reach of wi-fi. Well, turns out the place did have wi-fi, but I just logged in real quick, to check my email. No big deal, barely even counts. I disconnected, sipped my latte, opened a new Word doc, and stared at it. Turned the Internet back on and posted a quick blog post. Disconnected again. Stared some more. Started typing.

Lo and behold, I accomplished some writing. I set a goal to write five pages. I wrote two paragraphs, then the coffee shop closed. I went home and extended it to a full page. A page I don't hate. In fact, it might be pretty good, possibly. We'll see.

I'm making a resolution to turn off the Internet for an hour a day. I'm delaying sleep to record this resolution, which means I'm taking it very seriously, because I take sleep very seriously. The Internet is a fickle mistress, and I estimate the physical action of turning off the wi-fi connection will be therapeutic. I'll create a space dedicated to offline personal literacy in an attempt to become more fluent and articulate.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Hi, I'm a Facebook Addict

I have the day off work today. I'm not playing hookie -- I'm attending a leadership symposium this afternoon and all day tomorrow, so I'll be dressed up in a business suit soon, soaking in some wisdom and networking. In fact, I should make this brief. I got places to be.

So I noticed in college that Facebook was starting to overtake my life when I was checking Facebook before I checked my email in the morning. I wanted to see who had written on my wall and who had tagged me in pictures or gotten engaged or (God forbid) poked me. I still sort of do that, though it's a less high-pitched, urgent social need, more of a low rumbling of interest.

Today, as I said, I have the day off work, so it's a day for me to get a good night's sleep, enjoy a leisurely morning, do whatever I want before I have to get ready to leave. (Ah, the life of a 20-something. I'll appreciate it while I'm not responsible for other peoples' well-being or breakfast preparation.) And what's one of the first things I do, besides put in contacts and say hello to the cat? I check Facebook.

It's my daily link to many of my friends, particularly the ones who are flung around the country. And my family too: my parents are on Facebook, my grandparents are on Facebook, my little cousins all the way down to elementary school are on Facebook. It's news central.

I didn't take to Google+. Or I suppose I haven't yet, because I'm otherwise occupied when it comes to social media. And until Facebook does a redesign that actually kills puppies as it inconveniently reorganizes your news feed, I will continue to invest some of my socializing in it. Of course, one of my favorite Facebook applications is Events -- because it actually gets all these friends in the same room once in awhile. Social media is great, but actual socializing is better.

You are a human hyperlink

via LunaMetrics

 
Communication is a mainstay of our species' civilization. In other words, human interaction is a cornerstone of being human. As we've evolved from grunts and stone tablets to Skype and iPads, the changes in medium have affected not only how we communicate, but how we behave, date, stalk, react to current events. Yesterday the United States government executed Troy Davis, and Twitter went absolutely apeshit. This week Facebook launched a redesign intended to push the free social media service to a new level of central Internet hub. (People also went apeshit over that, but that's just whining.) If you're a young, smart, hip American, you may consider moving to Silicon Valley to make your fortune instead of New York or LA or Chicago. Times, they are a-changin'.

But the real thing that spurred me to finally start this blog -- my fourth, after my personal writing blog, an occasionally not-defunct music blog, and a sporadic but fun political drinking blog -- was this article in the New York Times. We could claim it snuck up on us, but we could have guessed that smartphone technology and scanning barcodes off advertisements was too good a partnership for marketing professionals to ignore. We've actually realized some of the dreams (and fears) of futuristic sci-fi: We're developing technology to allow us to digitize each individual and keep their files and records, websites and Tumblr feeds together. As the article's author, New York Times reporter Stephanie Rosenbloom, succinctly summed up, "In other words: you've become a human hyperlink."

As a writer and thus someone who a lot of time thinking about the smallest details of efficiency, of comma placement and tone, this concept fascinates me. I'm 24 years old. I had an email address by the time I turned 10. As a preteen I produced an email webzine for similarly aged girls. I've had a Facebook profile since the social media dawn of time in 2005. It's more than circumstance: This is the environment in which my generation is living and learning and communicating. How have these developments altered society? How has social media affected our love lives, our professional networks, our motivation to exercise or eat or spend the day surfing either the ocean or the Internet? Technology envelops every aspect of our daily lives; is it for the better? the worse? does it matter? Time will tell.

In the meantime, we can gab about it. And behold! The blogosphere has thus found its purpose.