"Ambient awareness", or, I was just thinking that...

[Gn2Dlnd]

Boing Boing discusses an interesting article on the effects of Twitter and other social networking devices on interpersonal relations.

And when they do socialize face to face, it feels oddly as if they’ve never actually been apart. They don’t need to ask, “So, what have you been up to?” because they already know. Instead, they’ll begin discussing something that one of the friends Twittered that afternoon, as if picking up a conversation in the middle.

This was certainly my experience this morning at brunch. The writers heads would explode if they ever read the soooo... thread.

[BarTopDancer]

That's completely been my experience. When I saw Erica we just picked up as if we had been seeing each other all this time. You know what the others are doing. It makes socializing more efficient. You also know almost immediately when someone needs help or something that requires their friends.

[Alex]

I've found (didn't read the article to know if this point is made) that it also makes it more difficult for an outsider to participate in a new group. Every conversation starts in the middle and is even more full of assumed knowledge.

[RStar]

Originally Posted by Alex

assumed knowledge.

If only it was that easy. Sit in a room for day, assume some knowledge, then walk out with a Masters degree. Cool.

Then go home in your flying car......

[Disneyphile]

With my phone, texting/twittering a message is really not feasible with its regular keypad. By the time I type all that crap (and I refuse to use "net speak" abbreviations), I can just call the person if it's that important.

I love my friends and all, but quite frankly, I don't care what they're doing every single minute of the day.

It's also the reason I hate IM's. I don't want to have to say, "BRB. Gotta go pee." and then rush back because I left someone waiting. Usually when I'm online, I don't want to be disturbed and like to respond at my leisure.

I just don't want to spend hours continuously chatting online. I'd rather be face-to-face with people when I'm feeling social.

[Gn2Dlnd]

My point is not so much that Twitter is a good or bad thing, but that the LoT is a perfect example of how this idea works. We've had a little conversation here, in the virtual world, that may come up in actual face-to-face conversation the next time we're at a LoT meet. In one thread we're talking about our high school experiences, in another, our political feelings, and in a third, what songs make us happy. And, of course, bacon.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Disneyphile

I love my friends and all, but quite frankly, I don't care what they're doing every single minute of the day.

It's interesting to me that everyone has their own way to keep in touch. You enjoy livejournal, and I never could get into it. I glance at LJ once in a while, but my overall reaction is meh. I would never have the time to write that much about my life, I don't have time to read others' very long, personal posts, and to be honest, I don't want to reveal that much about my life online. Yet the short form that Twitter provides is a fun toy for me to experiment with how I express myself and I love the little windows I get into the other's lives. It really does feel like I'm always connected and can "socialize" when and wherever I want.

I wasn't around in the Usenet days so I can't speak for then, but message boards seemed to be a watershed in online socializing and remained the standard for a long time (in technology years, that is). The basic concept behind any social networking site is the same as it is here - be able to express yourself with your own handle, enabling people to get to know you. As Gn2 points out, we've always bled our conversations over from one reality to another...and now the rest of the world is catching up. I guess we just did it backwards...

[Alex]

Maybe I've just self filtered around it, but on LJ, iSm is the only person I've seen who regularly posts more than a paragraph or two.

My "communication" problem with Twitter is that the window for interaction seems to be so short. If you don't reply to something pretty quickly it is just gone. But it obviously works for a lto people when it didn't click for me (I found people not using @ replies to be extremely annoying since it took what was already likely to be a pretty information empty post and made it a complete non sequiter when it is actually a reply to something I wasn't privy to). It seems to have significantly reduced traffic on my LJ friends list.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I definitely find my relationship with twitter falling in line with what's described in the OP link. The "what is everyone doing now" aspect isn't so much about people wanting to necessarily know exactly what everyone's doing. It's just the seed, that dumb excuse to pull out your phone and check the site. And so it guarantee's that someone's there and there's a conversation to be had. It's a way to fill those short bursts of downtime conversing with friends, uniquely suited to moments too short to do anything like reading or bettering one's self that go otherwise entirely wasted staring at a progress bar or sitting on hold or suffering through a powerpoint presentation

Actually I'm proud to say I have not even felt tempted to twitter or read twitter during a meeting. Right up to the start, absolutely, but once the projector turns on (there's ALWAYS a projector these days), phone is in my pocket.

[lashbear]

Originally Posted by Alex

It seems to have significantly reduced traffic on my LJ friends list.

Well, some people haven't even been invited to your friends list yet.