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| Cameron |
The clue, perhaps, is in the name.
Write a blog and you’re a blogger. Hack into a computer and you’re a hacker. So
it’s safe to say that when they came up with ‘twitter.com’, they weren’t
expecting much in the way of intelligent discourse. And so it has proved.
David Cameron may have got into
trouble in 2009 when he joked: ‘The trouble with Twitter … too many twits might
make a tw*t.’ But he was spot on.
In the three years since the Prime
Minister made the remark, Twitter has elevated inanity to a global art form.
I have no doubt that on the stroke
of midnight, millions of people — perhaps hundreds of millions — felt compelled
to reach not for a glass or a loved one, but for a phone or laptop in order to
type the following vapid salutation to no one in particular: ‘Happy New Year
x’.
To question the point of it all is
to mark oneself out as a ludicrous Luddite. All must ‘tweet’ in the modern age.
Mr Cameron himself has given in to
the ‘social’ media tsunami and signed up to Twitter. So, for that matter, has the
Queen, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dalai Llama. Even the Pope has
caved in, albeit under his Latin title of ‘Pontifex’.
In the interests of full disclosure,
I must admit that I have had a go at Twitter myself and would acknowledge that
there have been more interesting paint-dryings.
If you have a message to peddle,
then why not use a public platform which is both free and succinct (for those
unfamiliar with Twitter, no message can be longer than 140 characters)?
But, for many, it has also become
the default means of modern communication. Twitter might like to regard itself
as ‘social’ media, but the euphemism only stretches so far (as it does for,
say, ‘social’ diseases).
Of course, it has its uses. If one
happens to have a pressing urge to unburden oneself on total strangers, it is a
lot less embarrassing than sounding off to passers-by.
As an uncontrollable means of
communication, it has kick-started revolutions, as in Egypt. Harnessed
properly, it is a cunning marketing executive’s perfect tool to promote
everything from pop groups to politicians.
But it is also a celebration of
vanity and vacuity. It encourages us to dwell on the superficial, to echo the
predictable. Why bother writing a letter or making a donation or doing
something about something when we can just retweet someone else’s sentiment and
feel better?
Twitter can be as infuriating as it
is often unintentionally entertaining in the hands of the socially insecure —
particularly celebrities obsessed with projecting ‘the real me’ to their doting
followers.
The contributions of Mr Speaker’s
wife, Sally Bercow, have greatly added to the gaiety of the nation — and, more
recently, the pockets of the legal profession (thanks to her twitterings on the
subject of paedophiles and the blameless Lord McAlpine).
Indeed, all this mindless rumination
is not without its downsides.
Jobs and, in some cases, entire
careers have foundered thanks to a careless ‘tweet’. As for productivity, how
many millions of man-hours have collectively been lost to letting the world
know that the Bond film was quite good really and that it’s probably time for a
pizza?
All of which is why we should bow
down and thank Lord Coe for his timely reminder that, in the scheme of things,
Twitter is for twits.
Reflecting on the state of modern
sport, the great Olympian has just observed: ‘I’ve always found quite a high
correlation between people who spend their time in competition texting and
tweeting and under-performance.’
Now, after the year he has had, no
one can call Sebastian Coe a Luddite. He cheerfully ignored the critics (me
included) who argued that he was too ambitious with his big Olympic vision.
Instead, he let history be his
judge.
And his own gold medals — all the
more impressive in an age when Britain was at the other end of the medal table
— mean that his views on competition are beyond reproach.
And he is astonished at the way that
so many young sporting stars, on the cusp of the most important moment of their
sporting lives, feel obliged to impart utter drivel to the world.
Talking to BBC Radio 5 Live, he said
of those stars (and surely he can’t be thinking of the showbiz-minded diver Tom
Daley): ‘I just can’t imagine why you would want to be doing that when, at the
most important moment in your career, you are thinking about telling the world
you’ve just had a haircut or seen a movie.
‘I just find it bizarre that people
can be sitting there figuring out in 140 characters what they would say to the
world at that moment. Just go out and win the bloody race.’
Quite so, my lord.
No doubt some will make excuses for
younger athletes, arguing that social media like Twitter and Facebook are as
much a part of life for them as football stickers were for the Coe generation.
But it’s not an age thing. One 2012
swimmer wrote the following a week before the Games: ‘From Friday, I’ll be off
Twitter for a month so I have no distractions. I’m taking a new phone that
can’t give me internet access so I can’t even be tempted to break my Twitter
ban.’
Those sage words came from teenager
Ellie Simmonds. She went home with two Paralympic golds.
Nor is it just a sporting thing.
Come the big moment, how many GCSE or A-level students have under-performed
because they have felt compelled to update a bunch of not-remotely-interested
online ‘friends’ about the minor details of their lives?
But if their celebrity heroes are
taking time out to inform them that they are enjoying the sunshine, or planning
a trip to the shops, shouldn’t they be doing the same?
There is also another hazard of
wasting time on social media when there are more important things in one’s
life.
It is not just the distraction of
composing twaddle. It is the distraction of the abuse pumped out by trolls and
nutters.
Many sporting coaches impose a media
blackout, wary of the potential effect of barbed remarks on athletes whose
minds should be thinking only of the podium.
So why on earth are young stars
exposing themselves to the free-for-all that is cyberspace? Twitter addict Tom
Daley was a victim of such unpleasant Twitter abuse that one of his tormentors
was arrested.
But beyond the world of sport, with
all its support structures and psychologists, we read increasingly tragic tales
of young people who start out being ‘social’ and become suicide victims of
internet bullying.
We read of the bereaved or the sick
who suddenly find themselves mocked by warped oddballs who derive pleasure from
heaping anonymous agony upon a stranger.
The internet has brought untold
blessings and advancements to the way we live. But I would not say that Twitter
is one of them.
At best, it is a succinct method of
despatching a brief round-robin.
More often, it just encourages us to
be self-centred — to waste time and to become crashing bores.
Just listen to Lord Coe or Ellie
Simmonds. On the eve of your own Waterloo, focus on the matter in hand — and
spare the rest of us the fact that you quite fancy a pizza.
Dailymail.co.uk
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