Why Twitter is creepy
By Mike Moran. Filed in Social Media Marketing |Tags: Facebook, Social network, twitter, User experience design
Image by Salon de Maria via Flickr
No, it’s not just the bird. And, no it’s not my opinion. One of my teenagers told me that Twitter is creepy. And I saw a recent post by Paul Dunay where his fourteen-year-old’s friends “wanted nothing to do with .” Given the meteoric rise of Twitter, how can it be that at least some members of the digital generation have such negative reactions? These very same kids are active in Facebook beyond all bounds of time management, so they are not cyber-shy. I think it has to do with Twitter’s user experience.
I had lunch with Paul today and we briefly talked about that common experience that our teens have with Twitter. I think one of the clues to the perception lies in another comment my daughter made. Upon walking into my office, she saw Twitter up on the screen and said, “Oh yeah, that’s your stalker site.”
Stalker, eh? There’s a brand image that any company would love to have, huh? Well, maybe not. And I have to wonder whether some of that negative perception is driven by the simple choice of words. In Twitter, you “follow” someone, which certainly connotes more of a stalker connection than Facebook’s “friend.”
But perhaps there’s more here. On Facebook, friends request to be connected and you must approve, while on Twitter, they follow freely and you must block them to prevent it. You can lock your Twitter stream to force approvals of anyone with a follow request, but it’s not the default, so few do. The default is “opt out” rather than “opt in,” a subtle difference, perhaps, but it might lead to an out-of-control feeling. About such things do perceptions revolve, in case you haven’t paid due deference to usability gurus. For some reason, Facebook seems comfortable while Twitter seems creepy.
I wonder if the new digital generation can perceive creepiness in a Web site as easily as us oldsters can see it in a person’s face. Perhaps they’ve become so attuned to the digital world that they perceive things that we miss. Well, a sample size of a few teens does not give us enough data to reach a conclusion, but I’ll be interested to see the next study that shows Twitter users by age.
Wednesday, June 10th 2009 at 4:55 am |
Personally I checked twitter out. Then I stumbled upon that glitch. Yes people can follow you without you even approving this because of the default settings. I find it cumbersome to block each unknown user who follows me.
Wednesday, June 10th 2009 at 12:42 pm |
I think this is perfectly reasonable, most sensible Twitter users are not spending time on it to know when their mates had to go to the toilet, but as a networking/business tool, where the thing you want most is audience, as in being followed by thousand of “unknown” people.
Wednesday, June 10th 2009 at 2:16 pm |
I think its an interesting paradigm. Us older folks (i.e. non-facebook generation) are used to “lurking” in the early days of the web (chat rooms, etc.)
So twitter is kind of a half-way alternative between full participation in facebook with trusted circle vs. the older approaches.
Wednesday, June 10th 2009 at 3:43 pm |
I can understand why teens would be tuned out of Twitter. Teens run in social circles…of people they know. They are not trying to broadcast their blog, or promote a new book or product. They want to talk about what Jake looked like at the football game. Teens are much more exclusive. Their reputations depend on it.
I think that this entry does bring to light an interesting point. There were so many parental warnings about revealing too much private and personal information on Facebook and Myspace (*i.e what high school someone goes to, where they work, full first and last name, provocative photos…etc.) Fueling a third unknown party with ALL too much information, which could end in a terrible situation. The same precautions SHOULD be taken with Twitter, with out a doubt.
Friday, June 12th 2009 at 1:34 pm |
The digital generation needs to remember that they must put some bounderies as to putting their personal life online. This is the risk we take when we join social networking sites.
Thursday, June 18th 2009 at 11:52 am |
I find it cumbersome to block each unknown user who follows me.Teens are much more exclusive. Their reputations depend on it.
Thursday, July 2nd 2009 at 10:30 am |
Well I don’t think that way.Different websites have different way of doing things and Twitter is one such thing.In fact I think its easy to use twitter because you can easily follow anybody in Twitter.I think that people in Twitter wants to get followed therefore they say “Follow me on Twitter”.I think Twitter is mostly for professionals and not for kids.
Thanks