I Tweet, Therefore I am – An Analysis

The article, “I Tweet, Therefore I Am” is about the departure of human kind from the real world to a virtual world and social media. According to the article, the need to use the media for our gain has been replaced by a need to share information on the media. There are no boundaries to what people can share on social media. Just to share a few cases, Lam says that people share their daily proceedings, situations that arise around them and what they feel about certain things. There are many social media platforms. In most cases, people will spend a majority of their time on one platform. This has left the real world uninhabited and led to the development of a situation referred by Lam as the “death of empathy”. Owing to the fact that people spend most of their time the internet, they no longer have feelings for those that exist in the real world. Notably, their reaction to resolving issues on the real world is often delayed by a need to first quench the thirst of their respective platforms.

Twitter is one social media network that has accrued a large following. Recently, it has turned from just a place for people to meet but a place to share their sentiments and to gang up against situations that arise in the society. Twitter is a platform for self-expression. It gives individuals a chance to join up and share their views and opinions over issues that directly affect their society.

In this article, the author shares his view on social media with an apparent intention to mention how things trend on the internet. From the moment when something is posted on the internet to the time it acquires its fastest viewership on the internet is usually a very short time. One of the drivers of this viewership is Twitter. Twitter works by connecting various individuals through an aspect called “following”. People can view the content posted by those people they follow, such that when that person posts on Twitter, that content is placed on the timelines of those people who follow them for some time. People who view content are also able to share it by retweeting or by using hash tags. If an issue is trending on Twitter, it means that a lot is happening on the internet concerning that issue. Such issues will often be favorited, replied to and retweeted to get a bigger viewership. People may also create hash tags to go with the specific information. Twitter shows information of issues that are trending especially though hash tags. If something is trending, then it is likely to appear on many lists worldwide.

I have born witness of various issues trending heavily on Twitter. The first was the reaction to the arrest of Peter Greste and his two colleagues in Egypt in December 2013. In reaction to their arrest, the hash tag #FreeAJStaff was developed. This hash tag made it easy for the public to follow on the issue and make comments worldwide. Within hours of the capture of these individuals by the government of Egypt, the topic was trending worldwide as people contributed to the plea for their release. The Middle East Revolution mentioned by the author in 2011 was also phenomenal by all means. People contributed to the topic of the falling governments globally and sought to promote peace via the Twitter platform. Finally, when the Zimbabwean President accidently tripped on the stair, his image was taken half-way down and used by thousands to create memes to mock him. While this last instance is not one that could be of benefit to any one individual, it shows the power of Twitter on the internet.

While Lam feels that people are only trying their social media accounts as their diary, I feel that new trends are often motivated by an attempt at fame. People who get out their phones and post things on the internet when they are supposed to be helping are only trying to get famous on the internet and gain followers. Being controversial has been the way to go for some people like Argentina’s Dr. Alcira Pignata. For her she has always tweeted in the favor of controversy. People want to be at the center of a trending subject. People want to have their tweet retweeted by thousands of Twitter users.

In conclusion, Twitter has been used by many in various ways. It has been used by activists and other individuals to pursue their own beliefs and to gather support from other users. The situation described by Lam as the death of apathy could be driven by the desire to be famous by contributing on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. On Twitter, people want to be followed by thousands in a day and have their content retweeted over and over again. This is why people will take the first moment to take a video of a situation and share it instead of offering help in a desperate situation.

Works Cited

Lam, Andrew. ‘I Tweet, Therefore I Am – New America Media’. 24-26, 2010.