Tonight I used a metaphor comparing Twitter to a street corner. At some point the nice, safe and fun place to hang out started to become a more dangerous place. At first it was fun, after all who doesn't like the idea of a little danger?
At some point the fun, slightly dangerous corner was overtaken by hooligans. The corner is much more dangerous, threats are shouted at passers by. Graffiti started to appear all over. It went from a little fun and slightly dangerous to a place you don't want to be in alone.
Plenty of people still drive by the corner without noticing any difference. Others who tend to be more observant become a little less comfortable at the stoplight. Soon they find other routes to travel. Eventually even the least observant will notice, but by then the road will be as empty as the sidewalks.
So, the question is are you going to allow the street corner to be a place where hooligans feel comfortable? Are you going to help clean the graffiti or just ignore it as you drive by oblivious of the changes happening? Are you going to leave? Can it even be saved at this point?
Twitter is our street corner.
I believe that just like any "street corner", too many ar oblivious to what happens if, at this point in time, it doesn't effect them...
ReplyDelete"not my circus, not my monkey"
I agree, but there are some of us who have invested a lot into this particular street corner.
DeleteI'm just waiting for the hipsters to gentrify Twitter with plain text tweets where no one gets tagged into a photo. Then I'm selling my profile for a big profit.
ReplyDeleteI'll probably stick around for the craft beers and midnight bike rides. ;)
DeleteOn a more serious note, the idea that we can act to fix what we don't like about something is an important reminder. Quit complaining and do something about it with the tweets that you send. It's called social media, you have an impact on the environment.
ReplyDeleteOf course we do have a responsibility to push back. Unfortunately it takes a pretty strong willed person to do that against the street corner gangs that pounce on individuals and small groups.
DeleteI like the metaphor, but I don't necessarily agree that Twitter is a single street corner. Twitter is like a city with many street corners. We, as users, carve out our own street corner ... in our case an Education Street Corner and how we maintain that corner is up to us. I like to think I frequent many types of corners ... I sometimes visit the Music Corner which can get a bit tense at times and don't even get me started on those people I visit on the Political Street corner.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the metaphor really deals with our particular street corner in Twitter. We can (and many do) visit other corners but as teachers the ed corner is the one we tend to hold most dear.
DeleteI agree, the metaphor really deals with our particular street corner in Twitter. We can (and many do) visit other corners but as teachers the ed corner is the one we tend to hold most dear.
DeleteGood thoughts here. Based on recent incidents online, I wonder--who are the hooligans you're referring to? The people who repeatedly violate unwritten Twitter rules? Or the people who call those people out and speak up for what they believe makes Twitter a more powerful and empowering space? Or maybe you're thinking of a different scenario altogether, and I'm projecting?
ReplyDeleteI suspect the hooligans would change depending on one's point of view. There are plenty of incidents daily throughout the edutwitosphere that would qualify for someone.
DeleteSorry Will. I just checked my Twitter stream. People are already saying the street corner analogy is old and only traditional teachers would be resorting to such a non-technological analogy without an geographic :)
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