The psychological benefits of Twitter
After the gazillionth article on the use(fulness) of Twitter and its mysterious business-model, I thought I’d write a little about what I appreciate about it.
It’s perhaps surprising and definitely highly personal, but I love that it brings me close to people that I admire. You have no idea how many high-profile people are on Twitter, and to be able to follow their ups and downs (!) is particularly valuable to me.
As a kid, I was always wondering about how (im)perfect I was, and thinking about how other high-perf. people are managing their in’s and out’s. Similarly, that is why as a tween I read a lot of biographies, to find out who these people really were and whether I could be like them. But there’s always a barrier isn’t there, perhaps brought about by the magic of editing, making these people seem super-human, and in the end, you don’t grasp that special something that you need.
Twitter, for one, made me realise that this is not so, that in fact life is about the journey, not the fat wallet at the end. Just today, Fred Wilson announced to the world that he’s still suffering from post-holiday fatigue, something I also have sometimes and have always wondered if I’m alone in this. This is reassuring. Or Scobble, who’s withdrawn into his shell after making some loud, bold, and perhaps erroneous statements about Mahalo. But he’s back now, again confirming the journey-aspect of life.
You can analyse twitter, and the rest of the internet for that matter, from any angle possible. But in the end every innovation brings us one step closer to that hive-mind, to quicker collaborative learning, so that we can all be high performers, not just those in ivory towers.
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