Twitter: Trivial. Beautifully So.

By Ryan Turner | 2 Comments | Posted in in Creative , Marketing , User Experience , ZAAZ Life | Permalink

I wrote a post a year and a half ago on Twitter in which I identified two types of use for it. This was at the height of the initial buzz about Twitter, and while some folks were really excited to finally see an HTML / SMS / IM social application, others worried aloud that Twitter, for the same reasons it offers such a low threshold of entry, would also tend to erode the quality of social relationships online. The thoughtful anti-Twitter point of view was that it encourages triviality, and the gist of my post was that while that may be true, there are times when trivialities are useful.

Since I wrote that post, I've become an avid Twitterer, and I have to say my perspective on Twitter, and indeed on triviality, has changed. I now see triviality as maybe the critical element of truly meaningful relationships, online and off, and Twitter has accordingly become one of the cornerstone services of my personal and professional social lives.

That sounds crazy, I know, and while it may be true that I am prone to crazy-sounding declaratives, I'm actually not kidding about this. I now use Twitter at work very frequently, mostly within my team, and it has improved our functioning and, dare I say it, made us closer, more personally connected.

Let me float an assertion: The deeper the relationship, the greater the proportion of it dedicated to triviality; and beyond, say, 90% triviality, the relationship isn't a relationship at all. And likewise with meaningful interactions--if everything is meaningful, it's not a relationship, it's therapy.

So here is my Bullseye Diagram of Love, illustrating the way I'm starting to envision online social systems supporting healthy relationships:

So I'm arguing for Twitter, or an analogous triviality service (ha!) as a supplement to existing relationships, not as a full-fledged social channel in and of itself. As a social network, I actually do think it's useless, or worse. And you can take that as a caveat.

But I am saying I think triviality in general and as supported by Twitter, in both personal and professional settings, is indispensable--that we can and should deliberately design it into social systems.