Imagine with me for a minute that you are spending a regular day at a shopping mall. You are going about your business as usual, in and out of shops, thinking to yourself about something you like or something someone was wearing that looked oh so horrible. You walk from shop to shop passing people by in the walkway hardly looking at them or barely making eye contact. Nothing unexpected… nothing out of the norm.
Suddenly though a complete stranger walks past you and says, ‘*yawn*’ or even, ‘Just realised I’m starving!’ You look at them kinda funny, or shocked. ‘Why did they just say that?’, you think. The next person walks past and suddenly they say, ‘painting my nails’… you’re probably thinking these people have lost their minds. You carry on and a few people go by without saying a word and you begin to think that everything is normal again and you just had two weird people go past you. You notice a guy bobbing his head to music that he’s listening to in his iPod he gets closer as you walk and suddenly says, ‘#nowplaying tiesto – adagio strings’ and just walks on by.
You can see where this is going. Don’t you think Twitter is like one giant shopping mall where everyone inside is wondering around talking to themselves, saying whats on their minds. A lot however are at coffee shops or restaurants @mentioning each other. What if this were real life and people were willing to enter a conversation with someone as easily as they do on twitter. Consider this was happening for real, how many people would you meet on a day out… how many awesome conversations would you have with complete strangers simply because you were easily able to find something interesting to talk about… how many great friends could you make?? Lots!!
Heh, its effectively a big tweetup but where everyone talks loud enough for everyone else to hear!!
8:30 pm, September 28, 2010Rox /
no idea how i managed to not come across your blog, but anyway – better late than never!
love this analogy… was actually using a similar one trying to explain online dating to a friend, except with the dating site it’s more like a packed bar that has too many guys and not enough chicks, with plenty of egos and ‘manne’ all trying to force their point across and try and hit on you… and maybe one or two decent ones who don’t really seem to want to say or do anything.
maybe twitter and the interwebz can help us get out of our shells and connecting more in real life?
nice post!!
8:47 pm, September 28, 2010flipside /
Haha, you’re absolutely right… you could relate online dating in a similar fashion. LOL!
I definitely think that social media is having a greater impact on normal ‘real life’ as such. Twitter is now as easy as an sms to a close friend, but with the increased chances of meeting someone new!