Twittering Your Life Away
Twitter, for anyone left on the planet who doesn’t know, is a free social network on which users update their “followers” about where they are, what they’re doing or what they think — up to the minute. Essentially, it is a way to shotgun micro-blogs about your life (called tweets) to an audience of email pals you gather. Ashton Kutcher has over 1,000,000 people following his posts. I think my babysitter has about 100.
Twitter sounds like fun. It seems pretty harmless. And it’s really catching on, with over 50 million monthly visitors and a growth rate far surpassing 1000 percent per year.
There’s something troubling about Twitter psychologically, though. You could say the same for Facebook or MySpace and YouTube, but Twitter is potentially bigger trouble than any of the others. That’s because it can turn people into instant, mini-reality show versions of themselves — into entertainers, removed a little bit or a whole lot from their real feelings, genuine thoughts and true connections to others.
See, sending out tweets to “followers” isn’t a lot different than reporting your life as though you’re your own member of the paparazzi. It presumes that people care what you’re up to, which may not be entirely true and can be the growing place for narcissism. Narcissism, by the way, is unreasonable self-love, and it’s reaching epidemic proportions in this country. Young people think the world of themselves, even as their performance academically and in many other arenas declines.
Reporting on your own life story can also make you tend toward the dramatic in your daily existence. After all, who wants to send out boring tweets? You need to be reporting on adventure, romance, and, above all, conflict. As any decent screenwriter will tell you, people tune out if there’s no conflict. But when did we decide that being a human being, even an interesting human being, meant being “watchable” enough for people to “tune into” your broadcasts?
We didn’t decide any such thing. The yielding of humanity to technology, the bleeding of our true selves into fake profiles we manufacture for semi-public digestion has been a largely unconscious slippery slope. Technology has pushed us there. Media has pushed us there. Celebrities hell-bent on making us worship them have pushed us there. But more than anything, our own discomfort with being real people, our own anxieties about whether we really matter, doubts about whether we are lovable and fear of our own mortality has pushed us there.
Recently, surgeons have gotten into the Twitter game. They are broadcasting complex surgeries with constant tweets written up by OR staff so families or the general public can get up-to-the-minute reports about kidney transplants and the like. Doctors even do little PR tours about breaking new ground with their twittering. Well, guess what? I don’t want my doctor playing media darling while he or she is working inside my body. And I don’t need nurses hoping to be mentioned on a tweet. I want them focused on reality, on life and death, on me.
Here’s the really scary part. Twitter isn’t the end of the self-broadcasting phenomenon. There will be son of Twitter. And we will be that much further along the slippery slope to being actors in our own life stories, devoid of anything real, looking only for drama.
Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His newest book, “Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty” has launched a new self-help movement. Check out Dr. Ablow’s Web site at livingthetruth.com.
Tags: Ashton Kutcher, blog, Dr. Keith Ablow, Facebook, MySpace, narcissism, paparazzi, psychology, reality show, tweet, twitter, YouTube
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You write a sensationalist post about a popular service. Tell me again who’s looking for drama?
I’ve never done the Twitter thing myself, or Facebook or MySpace, but I can certainly see how it could become addicting in all the psychologically harmful ways you’ve mentioned.
Technology (especially the web) can definitely make real people want to become un-real performers, in an effort to be “Somebody”.
I, myself, have been (maybe still am) guilty of wanting to entertain others, without letting them know the real me. While that’s all fun and ego-massaging, I believe as Dr. Ablow does, that there is a tremendously slippery slope there.
If people get used to being performers, rather than being real people, relating to others in a real, honest way, then how is anybody ever going to have a genuine, honest relationship with anyone else (which is probably the source of true happiness)?
Fun and games and drama and conflict are all fantastic, in the world of fiction. But I think Dr. Ablow makes an excellent point in questioning whether all that is actually psycho-emotionally healthy in real life.
I dunno…
I just really like this post.
And Dr. Ablow… “Son of Twitter”– that’s just genius!
Thank you for explaining what twittering is.
I agree 100% with Dr. Ablow. I used to have a MYSpace Account and became obssessed with it, I would check it constantly and friends would post on it regularly. It was dumb, I would even post when I came home drunk at 1 A.M. and even check it on my lunch hour from work. Anyway, it ruined my relationship with my boyfriend eventually and I decided to quit using MySpace. That was two years ago, but now I see this obsession with Twitter and its very easy to see how people can become addicted. It’s not a good thing for our society. I actually am glad I never used Twitter because I know how addicting it is.
You’re a control freak who would like to tell everybody the perfect way of living life. If someone chooses to spend large amounts of time twittering, it is their life and their time and they choose to do so. You spend too much time giving other people advice on how to live life and should be doing something other than talking. Funny how we euthanize cats and dogs and call it humane but then treat suicide as if it were an act against someone else. You really should live your life worried about you and not about finding a way to control everybody else. Psychiatrists are full of crap!
Reading Mr Ablow’s comments on the Hauser case kind of reminds me of the psychiatrists trying to put Strisand away in Commited. They only want to further their carears with little or no consern for those involved, If the good non-doctor thinks kemo is so good for anyone I suggest he try it for a year or so. This might give him some insite in to what he wants to force on a kid. The only thing worse then cancer is the poor excuse for a cure call kemo which the chemical companies want you to think is good for you, when in fact there is nothing good for you in that poisenous whiches brew. Probably Mr Ablow should stick to shrinking heads and leave medical desisions to Qualified people
I agree w/ Dr. Keith 100%. I recently joined Facebook and it’s amazing how everyone’s lives seems so happy and perfect – you never hear about what’s really going on. What happened to the days when everyone read a book or went to a movie to (temporarily)experience some drama? Why do we all feel compelled to fabricate it in our own lives? The more technology advances the more I just want to get back to basics – because no matter how far things progress they will never replace one of life’s most essential needs: the human connection.
Twittering popularity
is a….big cry….. for….attention and adoration
People want to be noticed and loved.
It’s a shame that people cannot find
true friendship and love without exploitation.
.”.Being removed from their real feelings
and true connections”
Is not going to bring them lasting happiness or fulfillment.
Twittering, Texting, Facebooking, Myspacing, Skypeing… is what we are all doing while real life happens. I refuse to fall into this! Great article!
True enough.
But it’s not insanity!!!
I was disappointed to see your diagnosis of “Clark Rockefeller,” who seems not unlike Obama, a plain-vanilla narcissist, which is not insanity.