On Twitter

In my first Twitter profile, I claim allegiance to tweets over Facebook statuses. I wasn’t sure why, but I knew there was something about this platform that I cared about more than Facebook.

I was a pretty consistent user for a while–I racked up about 400 tweets through the years of 2008-2015. Nowhere near the volume someone obsessed with the platform would produce. But I was mostly curious and trying to figure out what Twitter was trying to be.

For example, there were early signs of using Twitter as a professional platform. You proudly display your companies and talk about work and the ideas you are passionate about. But like all early platforms trying to figure out its identity, there was also lots of personal overlap. I didn’t really feel comfortable with that, since I am a fairly private person. I stuck around but I created a public Twitter profile in 2014. That is who you see if you find me there. I am not professional.

Twitter lets everyone speak their minds to the internet, and anyone is accessible if they have an account that is not private. The ultimate way to give and receive attention is to speak to the Twitterverse, because there is always at least one person listening. People are inherently social and seek out some kind of interaction, even on the internet, and your words find a way to likeminded people eventually. The internet is full of platforms because the platforms are actually different social groups.

If we are creating these platforms, we have to understand feelings and what they can do. Why do platforms fail so hard into toxicity? Because we forget that every interaction with tech can get dramatic when there are people involved.