How does Twitter affect the social lives & skills of young adults?
It is hard to believe that there was a time, not long ago, where there were no laws against texting and driving. Well, that all changed once smartphones came along. It did not take very long after smartphones were invented for other social media platforms to bloom and totally take over. platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat, and Youtube have dominated social media. With all these different platforms we can receive our daily news, share our recent vacations, send videos of our pets, or watch whatever videos we want wherever we want. All of the social media platforms today provide an insane amount of stimulation, so much that we will never find ourselves bored.
Information Overload
Twitter is one of the more rare forms of social media that we come across on a daily basis. The platform can be all over the place regarding the information you see, however, it can depend on the accounts you choose to follow. Luke O’Neil of Esquire explains this in a great way when he says
“Check your feed right now, and you’ll see what I mean: sexual assault, football highlight, dog picture, mass shooting, around and around in an unending circle”.
For the average teen or young adult, this is Twitter in a nutshell. As humans, our brains were not designed to handle such overload, not to mention a drastic change in information.
Are we more alone with technology?
Every young adult or teenager at some point has had their parent constantly telling them to put their phone away during dinner. We have become so connected to social media that we are dependant on apps such as Twitter for constant entertainment, news, or messaging. Although it may seem as if technology brings us closer together, it is actually the contrary. Especially with this past year of mandated isolation, we have heavily relied on social media to keep intact and connected with our friends and family. A video titled ‘I Forgot My Phone’ created by CharstarleneTV perfectly encapsulates how disconnected we are with our friends even while we are with them. When we are spending time with our friends or family we always seem to be on our phones instead of actually connecting face-to-face. Rachel Carwile, a reporter of The Grass Burr, says that
“technology can make you feel more alone because people can become more dependant on social media connections than real-life connections”.
This is especially true in our generation, as for most of our lives we developed our social skills through the use of social media such as Twitter instead of face-to-face. Although this type of skill may be valuable in the future, it is ever important for us to have real-life connections with people for the good of our mental health.
Has Twitter made our social skills worse?
I am sure we have all experienced a moment in which we felt awkward or did not know what to do, so we result to pulling out our phone and scrolled through Twitter in order to feel ‘occupied’ even though we are most likely not retaining any information we are seeing. This type of social awkwardness/anxiety may be due to our inability to truly connect with a person in real life. On social media, it has been found that people tend to disclose more personal information than in real-life connections, according to Human Communication Research. This is because asynchronous communication such as Twitter allows the messenger to carefully craft the perfect message in order to refine and optimize their self-presentations. In the modern-day we are more connected than ever before, however, more people have felt more alone than ever before. studies have shown that 48% of respondents have only one close friend, compared to 25 years ago where people said they had 3 close friends. Having fewer close friends is not always a bad thing, although with less real-life social interaction technology has made people more socially awkward.
Digging up old tweets
Twitter not only can internally affect your social life but also externally. One of the main things that separate Twitter from other social media platforms is the limit of 140 characters in each message. According to Pacific Standard, these types of short messages can seem abrupt and the message from the sender to the receiver (their followers) can become interpreted very differently. Another reason Twitter is so different is due to the fact that someone is able to follow another person and see the user’s feed without two-way connectivity, however, there are ways around this such as private profile or blocking. Recently, there have been tons of cases of people discovering old tweets from a famous person’s account and ‘exposing’ them. A very recent example comes from one of the Minnesota Vikings’ 2021 draft picks.
As you can see this was almost 5 years ago, and his views might have changed by now, but this is the danger of Twitter. Although you can delete posts, yes this tweet has since been deleted, most people forget about them. Also, just looking at this tweet alone, you cannot see the full context as it was a reply to another user, another unique thing to Twitter. This is why Twitter can also have an external effect on your social life. When someone digs up an old tweet, people may only judge you based on that one decision, even if your views have changed drastically since then. This can also have a big effect on job searches as companies nowadays do a background check through social media.
Should I stop using Twitter?
Not necessarily. There is good that can be found on Twitter and all social media platforms, the crucial part is being conscious about what you are seeing and who you follow. It is also important to maybe set some boundaries of when you can scroll through Twitter or how long you scroll. The most important thing you can do is to put away your phone and enjoy the company of your friends and family, the tweets will still be there tomorrow.
