{"id":3169,"date":"2015-11-11T12:47:05","date_gmt":"2015-11-11T02:47:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mappingonlinepublics.net\/?p=3169"},"modified":"2015-11-11T12:47:05","modified_gmt":"2015-11-11T02:47:05","slug":"twitter-probably-isnt-dying-but-is-it-becoming-less-sociable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mappingonlinepublics.net\/dev\/2015\/11\/11\/twitter-probably-isnt-dying-but-is-it-becoming-less-sociable\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter (probably) isn’t dying, but is it becoming less sociable?"},"content":{"rendered":"

[cross-posted at Medium]<\/a><\/p>\n

Twitter\u2019s demise has been announced so many times over its lifetime that it\u2019s hard to keep track of all the premature eulogies (and this one from a year ago is actually pretty insightful<\/a>), but there seems to be a new intensity in the circulation of decline narratives at the moment. A couple of weeks ago there was quite a bit of heat on umair haque<\/a>\u2019s Medium story<\/a>, in which he proclaimed:<\/p>\n

Twitter\u2019s a cemetery. Populated by ghosts. I call them the \u201cists\u201d. Journalists retweeting journalists\u2026activists retweeting activists\u2026economists retweeting economists\u2026once in a while a great war breaks out between this group of \u201cists\u201d and that\u2026but the thing is: no one\u2019s listening<\/em>\u2026because everyone else <\/em>seems to have left in a hurry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Haque went on to offer his theory of the source of the trouble\u200a\u2014\u200aabuse, incivility, and a lack of care on the platform\u2019s part:<\/p>\n

Twitter could <\/em>have been a town square. But now it\u2019s more like a drunken, heaving mosh pit. And while there are<\/em> people who love to dive into mosh pits, they\u2019re probably not the audience you want to try to build a billion dollar publicly listed company that changes the world upon.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Leaving aside the problem that \u201cwe\u201d is unspecified there\u2019s a strange contradiction here (hint: when \u2018we\u2019 is offered unreflexively it usually means \u2018people like me\u2019\u200a\u2014\u200aand who said we wanted it to be a town square anyway? Why not a cosy corner of the pub?) Haque\u2019s image of death seems to involve a ghost ship populated only by blind, mutually retweeting \u2018-ists\u2019, while \u2018everybody else\u2019 has left the building; and at the same time a writhing mosh pit populated by a seething mass of too many of the wrong kind<\/em> of users. I don\u2019t want to diminish the feeling being expressed, but there is also a certain amount of early adopter angst here\u200a\u2014\u200ait\u2019s a structural imperative that self-defined cultural avant-gardes throw their hands up in disgust when their scenes go mainstream.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Haque\u2019s primary issue with Twitter, however, is a loss of civility\u200a\u2014\u200a<\/em>and the platform definitely has a problem with online hate, bullying and mob justice<\/a>, as anyone involved in discussions around race and gender online knows. And people at the receiving end of online hate and who are committed to\u200a\u2014\u200aand good at\u200a\u2014\u200ausing Twitter as a political platform in the face of it<\/a> are becoming increasingly frustrated at the platform\u2019s primarily identity-blind, libertarian, free speech-dominated approach to behavioural regulation and governance, despite the recent revamping of the platform\u2019s \u2018safety\u2019 policies and procedures<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But more broadly too, the narratives of decline around the place at the moment that have to do with a certain loss of sociability. <\/em>And to those of us for whom Twitter\u2019s pleasures were as much to do with ambient intimacy<\/a>,\u00a0personal connections<\/a> and play as they were to do with professional success theatre, celebrity and breaking news, this is a real, felt loss: sociability\u00a0matters<\/em>.<\/p>\n

There have been a number of halting attempts to get at what has gone on here. The other day there was another flurry of agitation around the Atlantic piece on The Decay of Twitter<\/a> by Robinson Meyer who draws on some of\u00a0Walter Ong\u2019s<\/a> ideas about orality and literacy as well as of Bonnie Stewart\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0work to suggest that by losing its \u2018orality\u2019 and reverting to the codes and conventions of print culture, Twitter is losing its soul.<\/p>\n

And then, earlier this week: #heartsontwitter<\/a> exploded. After umpteen platform changes designed to make the platform more media-friendly and less SNS-like, Twitter suddenly replaces \u2018favorites\u2019 (represented by a star) with \u2018likes\u2019 (represented by a red, Instagram-esque heart that explodes when you click it like you\u2019re playing Candy Crush or something). The move, which came with loads of self-congratulation and saccharine PSAs<\/a>, was apparently done to appeal to new and especially youthful users who might be confused by Twitter\u2019s quirky native conventions, many of which draw on older web culture practices like bookmarking (remember del.icio.us?), and that more importantly aren\u2019t actually the same as Facebook\u2019s or Instagram\u2019s. While there was plenty of cheerful optimism, a large and vocal chunk of Twitter\u2019s core userbase protested with a mixture of passion, comedy and despondency, for various good reasons. Not least of which is that Twitter really does matter to people, and such acts of apparently casual violence to how it works are seen as serious business. Osman Faruqi\u2019s cri de coeur<\/em> in The Guardian<\/a> (if you\u2019ll pardon the pun) is a great example:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s infrastructure for basic communication, which is why people are so upset over the change to hearts: imagine if, instead of saying \u201cOK\u201d on the phone to a relative stranger, you were forced to say \u201cI love you\u201d. It\u2019s that basic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Despite spinning the heart to existing users as a more \u201cexpressive\u201d and \u201cuniversal\u201d symbol, Twitter has admitted<\/a> the change is really about making the platform easier for new users.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But how many times can the company change what works in pursuit of more users before its base packs up and moves on? It\u2019s not the relatively recent new features\u200a\u2014\u200asharing images, videos and Vines\u200a\u2014\u200athat catapulted Twitter into the mainstream. It was the idea that your 140 character message, no matter how inane, could be read and shared across the world, sparking conversation, debate, new ideas and friendships.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I admit it, from my own perspective Twitter in 2015 feels very different to Twitter in 2013, let alone 2006. I have a sense that where once there was mundane intimacy and listening there is deafness and noise, and I know I\u2019m not alone in the feeling. Where once it felt like there was a special convergence of personal and public communication, it seems as though the personal has been crowded out, which may indeed bring with it a degradation of the personal connections that both animated Twitter\u2019s ad hoc publics and kept them accountable. Twitter\u2019s structure of feeling<\/em> has definitely shifted.<\/p>\n

And, you know what, I pretty much blame the \u201cWe don\u2019t care about your lunch! Twitter is for news!<\/a>\u201d brigade for this, and so part of me wants to say, \u201cWell, I hope you\u2019re happy, tech-biz\/journo\/public-sphere people. I hope you\u2019ve got the Twitter you always wanted.\u201d *mic drop here*<\/p>\n

But I would be a terrible, terrible researcher if I didn\u2019t wonder how much of this perception of Twitter\u2019s decay of sociability is true beyond my own individual perceptions, or even my own ego network. Since we\u2019re doing some work together on a book about Twitter, over the past few days Nancy Baym<\/a> and I have been listening to other people\u2019s thoughts on the question:<\/p>\n

\n

Dear friends, I have 2 quick unofficial Qs: 1. Do you feel like Twitter is dying\/degrading? 2. When did you join? https:\/\/t.co\/r2jLHjhtOt<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Jean Burgess (@jeanburgess) November 2, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n