Humour

Why do the Twitterati tweet?

T A Balasubramanian on the new flavor of social networking

Assigned a new project by his CEO, Baidyanath Baffle, the founder and owner of Baffle Technologies (otherwise called Baff-Tech), Doodh Byramji, the tireless IT research engineer continues his notes.

Dear Diary (writes Byramji recording conversations faithfully):

Here we are Quick Sip, the trendy restaurant. The subject with me is Groucho Goose, Manager, Slinky Marketing Strategy for Confusing Clients, from Duckbill & Goose.

It seems that the Web world is relentlessly upbeat in its embrace of the new flavor of what is called ‘social networking.’ With MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and dozens of other buzzing sites, social networking is moving millions of people into all kinds of new connective relations. I find this assignment fascinating, as it has taken me into the heart of this new craze called micro-blogging.

“Well, Doodh, so you have seen why Twitter makes me go gaga. It is like a haiku—short, brief, and demanding little effort to pen. It can be where you want it, when you want it, how you want it, and limited to micro-messages from the people you choose to ‘follow,’ if you follow my drift.”

“Now that’s all very good, Groucho, but why would Twitter be of any value to the average CEO who is more interested in keeping his user population focused on work, rather than ‘tweeting’ like twits. I presume a 140 character limit is a blatant encouragement to chat?”

“I doubt if any CEO would look upon chatting as an idle pastime. For example, in the past year, Duckbill & Goose has become busier and busier and I have slowly been taken away from one of my first loves, blogging. Now, would you consider all blogs to be an idle pastime? Or for that matter, any social network?”

“Well, it depends on how you network, and what it does for your work.”

“Of course. I used to post on blogs several times per day about matters that were stirring me up professionally—and sometimes personally, since these borders begin to blur when you start putting down your thoughts seriously before an audience. I could start and end a complete, fairly coherent thought and have a good dialogue there. As I became busier, it became more and more difficult to do this and I have found myself posting just once or twice a week. By not having enough time to post my blog, I was losing much of my thinking along the way. As my blog became more and more ‘professionally focused,’ I was losing the personal things that matter to me.”

“I still do not see how a shorter micro-blog can be better than, say, a longer and more engrossing web essay.”

“Let me put it another way. Sure, twittering is attractive for the anytime, anyplace, anywhere short clip posting—which does not need to be a deeply thought-out or a cheerfully rambling blog. But that is not all—you could find there is something else too, at work. A few years ago, when I was drawn into a team that was designing layouts for a new office, we started looking at the best ways of organising water-cooler spots—places where people gather to chat, breaking the work monotony. Most of the designs were like fungus growth—where strange-looking water-cooler tables—say ‘squares’ were placed anywhere randomly for people to sit facing each other. Some of the designs, on the other hand, were of the side-by-side variety, as in a doctor’s waiting room, where instead of a square, the idea was to seat people on a long narrow bench, next to each other.”

“The squares would encourage conversations?”

“No, Doodh. Precisely the opposite. When you see someone at a square, you get face-to-face with that someone in order to start a conversation—which is like a confrontation—and you know that most of us dislike confrontations. When you see someone sitting next to you, you don’t feel like they could threaten you, right?”

“I see. Like at a bus-stop, when you stand next to someone and break into conversation?”

“Exactly. What I am saying is that a side-by-side bench makes conversation happen more easily, while a face-to-face square table can be daunting at the start, especially with strangers.”

“I can understand that. So you consider a micro-blog to be like a bench.”

“Yes. A simple and natural place for bonding.”

“What happens if all this incessant bonding becomes a habit? I mean, would it turn into bondage?”

“Well, Doodh, think of tweeting as a form of vocal grooming. Look around. Glossy magazines make a profitable business out of our appetite for trivia. We religiously watch news that has little relationship to truth. We bond with reality shows where people hang out their personal lives. This age-old human habit is not just about curiosity—it is about creating stories that make sense of our friends and thereby, about ourselves. Research among primates has shown that gossip and other forms of casual conversation popular among humans act as linguistic equivalents of the social grooming performed by most monkey tribes. It is clear that both social grooming and high social status make us feel good, and may even be good for our health—though, of course, the cynics would say it is bondage of a certain kind. But if it is, I would guess that it is of the healthy kind.”

“How can that be?”

“Well, it has been shown that the mutual grooming performed by primates stimulates production of endorphins—the body’s natural painkilling opiates—which makes them relaxed, and reduces their heart rate and other signs of stress. I would say that the ‘vocal grooming’ of exchanging little tit-bits of gossip among humans has similar effects. Experiments have also shown that the raising of social status is associated with increased serotonin in the brain, which has equally beneficial physical and psychological effects. By tweeting, we may effectively be giving ourselves the natural equivalent of small doses of morphine.”

“Are you suggesting that we use all this bonding to get a mental buzz?”

“Sure, and why not? It is legal, is it not? Besides, it only makes my buzz more effective when I can keep growing the number of people I buzz with at my own pace. Maybe up to 150, but not more.”

“Is there a natural limit?”

“Yes—human groups are typically about 150, and the largest non-human groups—chimps and baboons—I understand, are about 55. So vocal grooming, or ‘tweeting’ should be 150/55 times more efficient than physical monkey grooming as a bonding mechanism. In other words, while monkeys can groom only in pairs, human bonding groups may consist of an average of four—one speaker and three listeners. Research at Duckbill & Goose shows that conversation groups in companies, for example, consist of an average of 3.4 people, with a striking tendency for groups larger than four to fragment into two or more smaller subgroups.”

“And as part of the twitterati, we get to choose or ‘follow’ many such subgroups?”

“Quite so. You may say that it gives you the satisfying illusion of having multiple sources of grooming. That would explain the popularity of some blooming social networking media—blogging, podcasting, online video, wikis and now, tweeting. It is all about adding variety, so to speak, to the gaggle of grooming you belong to.”

“You scratch my back, and I scratch yours—with refreshing choices too, eh?”

“Exactly, Doodh. We’re still good monkeys at heart, you could say.”