Call me a Twitter whore. I tweet night and day, both for entertainment and professional reason. I’ve been tweeting so much I almost abandon this blog all over. For this reason, I very well understand why some people blame the diminishing popularity of blogs on the advent of Twitter. Even Raditya Dika admitted this once on his tweet. He isn’t updating his blog as much as he did before, thanks to the addictive social networking service.
So this happened to me a couple of weeks ago. It never occured to me that some people really resent Twitter, even for clearly-defined corporate purposes. They think Twitter is time wasting, unproductive, and silly! It’s a pastime for people with no jobs. To me, it sounded like they condemn and ban the use of knives as people can get hurt or murdered by it. So how about butchers or chefs trying to make a living with knives? Do they have to leave their jobs or use a tiny razor to slice up meat? In other words, what I’m trying to say here is why people keep creating technologies while blaming their chaotic lives on them? As absurd as it may sound but it’s true and really happening. I mean, how many times do we Indonesian mass media consumers read headlines pointing at Facebook for a series of crimes like minor abductions, rapes, fraud and so on?
I might not be a social media guru, one of the early adopter of the technology or a highly experienced Twitter user. I, however, have been witnessing first hand how Twitter can be such a magnificent tool to spread ideas, foster noble causes and awareness, as well as keep us informed with the current affairs around the globe.
As far as I’m concerned, this is why I think Twitter deserves more attention and flattery (though it actually is accepting overflowing attention and flattery right now) in spite of its ‘notoriety’:
Twitter is totally simple
It’s true it gets harder to learn new things as we turn older each day. But the point doesn’t lie there. Twitter is designed to broadcast our 140-character tweets, which I assume anyone at any age can do. We may read thousands of tweets on a single day alone. Several tweets catch our attention and we may favorite them by clicking the favorite button. That’s like bookmarking tweets. You can go over it later on as you have spare time, especially when the tweets contain links to inspiring and beneficial articles or quotes from a public figure you adore very much and whose messages resonate.
Twitter creates virtual bridges to interact
It’s a remote chance for any of the ‘commoners’ like us to be able to directly interact with the idols we worship since forever. On Twitter, you can get their attention by becoming their follower, actively responding and getting involved in the conversations. I discovered people who can’t contain their joy upon learning the idol voluntarily followed them back although it’s quite apparent that it wasn’t the idol himself but someone managing the idol’s account.
Twitter gives you relatively no room for insicerity or obscenity
Once you offend or piss people off, they can block you for good from their Twitter timeline. Yes, making friends on Twitter is as simple as a click, and so is making enemies. You can delete the tweet afterwards but before that, there’re at least a few people find your tweet on their timeline and respond to it. So stop being heinous and be yourself while maintaining decorum as you tweet.
Now you can ask yourself how you benefit from Twitter.
Akhlis's Blog 
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