Blog #8 - Syeda

At present, Twitter is a technology whose impact on my life has been immeasurable, both in the sense of what it enables me to do and in how it has affected my thinking.

 Even though I’ve had my twitter account since 2009, or at least that’s what my profile tells me, I didn't really use Twitter much in high school and only really picked it up since starting university in 2014. With a smaller social circle and smaller twitter user base in high school, controversial ideas weren’t all too common, with little variance among opinions. As such, I used Twitter more as a peripheral form of social media--browse when I’m bored, send an angst-y tweet here or there (like “Dr. Jack Shephard, MD, stubble model” or “when you listen to a song and think of that one person >>.” I looked back at my old tweets for this, I know.), leave when the timeline becomes boring again. I’ve still not become such a heavy user, with only 2,200 tweets since opening my account (which over 9 years, averages out to be two tweets/retweets per 3 days), but my use of Twitter changed drastically nonetheless. In university, twitter became more ubiquitous as a form of socialization as an inherent function of the fact that my shared circles and cultural centers with which I became involved used it. On the personal level, 4 of my closest friends and I eventually formed a Twitter group chat that is our primary form of communication among one another. We share funny memes, thought provoking threads, quality retweets, and just plain and simple, talk to one another, with the occasional coordinating of lunch or plans. Grasping the effect of this on my life alone is hard to grasp--quite literally, Twitter (in addition to Snapchat and Whatsapp, of course) has become a means of socialization among friends and entertainment all at once.

 Alongside the current political, social, and racial climate in the United States and world as a whole, Twitter obviously comes to reflect these. Twitter isn’t only for the lulz, but also becomes a means to communicate news and perspectives that aren’t given a platform in traditional forms of media (Fox, ABC, NBC, etc.). We’ve seen the BlackLivesMatter movement rise in popularity and power via Twitter and we’ve heard obscure viewpoints like @AlabedBana’s, a 9 year old from rebel held and besieged Aleppo, Syria, who with the help of her mother, tells us what it’s like to see destruction, oppression, and famine from the ground. Hell, our president, *THE* president of the United States, made informal-but-formal/bindingontheworldstage statements last week about Assad’s use of chemical weapons, making it necessary to order airstrikes on Syria so as not to seem like we’re all bark, no bite. Twitter is undoubtedly powerful, and I genuinely learn about the world through it. 

Conversely, open platforms give dumb, uneducated opinions a voice too--like the romanticized tweets where people thank God for cutting out toxic people from their lives when a simple conversation would solve everything. Or the blatant racism and Russian bots. You name it, it’s there. Romanticize cheating? Hold serious conversations about harming one another? It’s all there. And it’s a propagandist’s treasure.

 Taking all of these into account, perhaps the most valuable way that Twitter has done well to me is that I’m more founded in my ways of thinking, beliefs and values. I’ve learned to think critically, in some ways learning mostly what not to do or what not to be. I’ve learned about social movements and politics, becoming more conscious and connected to the world around me. I’ve enjoyed many laughs and brief breaks from my stress. And above all, it’s given me the opportunity to become close to the people I’m close to and to peek through a little window that shows me why I love and value them.