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For the last month the Twitchhiker has tweeted his way around the world and made it all the way from the United Kingdom to New Zealand. His travels have shown the amazing power of Twitter as a way for people to communicate - but with power comes a dark side too.
But before going to the dark side, let me catch everybody up. If you have never heard of Twitter than you need to know that "Twitter allows users to post 140-character messages either online or from their mobile phones and to monitor other users' updates as needed." To give you an idea of what 140 characters means - I just defined Twitter in 140 characters.
A few weeks back, Paul Smith came up with the idea of using the goodwill of Twitterers to travel as far as he could in 30 days. He came up with his own set of rules - he only communicates via Twitter; his travel plans cannot be determined more than three days in advance; he pays for food, drink and anything else that fits in his backpack, but otherwise, he relies on the charity of his fellow Twitterers; and his goal is to reach the spot on Earth that is farthest from his home city - New Zealand's sub-Antarctic Campbell Island. Highlighting the reach of Twitter, Smith is currently in New Zealand though it remains to be seen if he makes it to the remote Campbell Island.
This experiment with twichhiking focuses my attention on two issues with Twitter – reliability and privacy. Reliability is more of a technical issue and privacy is more of a social issue.
Reliability has been an Achilles heel for many Internet businesses and Twitter far more than many. The Twitter whale is a well known logo to any Twitterer. During Mr. Smith’s March trip Twitter has had several multi-hour outages. Twitter, along with MySpace and Facebook, highlights how so many people have become to depend on free services with questionable reliability. These outages slowed Smith down – but an extended outage could have grounded him.
While reliability is a risk, it’s privacy that really gets me worried. Now Smith is an adult, a freelance writer, who I am sure will soon be writing articles if not a book about his experience so I don’t worry about him. We’ve had too many instances of sexual predators trying to reach kids over the Internet in chat rooms. But Twitter takes it a step further as people, all too often teenagers, text where they are at, what they are wearing and where they are going next. What more can a criminal ask for! I’m quite surprised nobody has stolen all of Mr. Smiths’ belongings – after all, the entire whole world knows his name, his home town and that he is most certainly not at his flat this month.
“Mr. Smith goes to New Zealand” has been fun to watch – but I’m hoping not to see any sequels. Let’s figure out better uses for those 140 characters.
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Comments
Sorry David, but that's a
Sorry David, but that's a very poorly researched feature, with regards to both Twitter and my situation.
Regarding my own circumstances, it's been stated on numerous occasions throughout my blog and Twitter that I'm married, so in fact my home has never been unoccupied throughout this trip. There are no doubt over a dozen people called Paul Smith in Newcastle alone - it's one of the most common names in the UK.
Regarding Twitter, it's well documented that Twitter has seen very little take-up from teenagers, and is in fact far more popular with older demographics, much older in fact than the likes of Facebook. The statement "Twitter takes it a step further as people, all too often teenagers, text where they are at, what they are wearing and where they are going next" is absolute nonsense, without a shred of evidence to support it.
In fact if you'd even bothered with a Google search you'd see the average age of a Twitter user is thought to be 31, so quite where the statement that users are "all too often teenagers" was plucked from is a bit of a mystery. In fact your attempt to draw a line between Twitter and pedophilia is utterly nonsensical and one of the most ridiculous comments I've ever read.
I'm sorry you don't feel that is project has been worthy of Twitter; I think it's proved itself on many levels, and of course you've failed to mention the thousands it's raised for Charity: water.
If you do figure out a better use for those 140 characters, there's nothing to stop you doing something about it. Perhaps that'll be a better use of your time than rattling off ill-informed scaremongering.
I am honored that you took
I am honored that you took the time out of your travel to drop a note. I'm sorry you confused "not agreeing with you" with "poorly researched" but no offense taken. Yes, my research showed you were married but I took a little liberty with the comment on your flat to make a point.
The point is safety. Your a grown adult capable of making appropriate decisions - or inappropriate and dealing with the consequeneces. What has many people worried, and I was at an educator's meeting this past week to hear it first hand, is how teenagers and even pre-teens are using sites like MySpace, Facebook and, of course, Twitter.
People watched with excitement as you traveled - but what would the reaction be if a 16 year old teenage girl tried this same approach and met less "illustrious" or "honest" members of Twitter.
Every technology brings good and bad. Those, like yourself who love a technology, tend not to see the bad - but Twitter and society in general will have to come to terms with the challenges. I hope that more schools start teaching how to use sites like Twitter - something that was in the news last week back in your home country.
Safe travels - in your virtual world and the real world. But - I still hope NOT to hear about copycat attempts.
"People watched with
"People watched with excitement as you traveled - but what would the reaction be if a 16 year old teenage girl tried this same approach and met less "illustrious" or "honest" members of Twitter."
Good grief, the same 16 year old girl is at more risk going to the corner dairy (or a BP Station in Waterview)these days than meeting a sticky end via twitter. In fact the very nature of what seems to be a unified social network would probably try to persuade said 16 year old against embarking on an ill advised adventure.
Albeit not a big fan of celebrity in general, I was impressed with the rapid intervention of '@Mrskutcher' in what appeared to be an attention seeking suicide attempt recently and the response from the twittersphere.
David, you hit the wrong nail with the wrong hammer in using Paul as an example to make your point. You know we forgoe our rights to privacy when signing up to the likes of twitter and facebook, and its fact that our teens don't have the same sense of 'privacy protection' that we older folks do. Social networking sites like bebo and facebook are here, a fact of life but not necessarily here to stay. The net is a rapid moving collection of fads and trends.
What I think is most important is for us as parents to be more 'net aware' and keep a very close eye and short reigns on our kids internet activity.
I don't see the link between Pauls undertaking, twitter and pedophilia at all. The issue is more a culture of parental disinterest and an illfated view that kids on a computer are safer than hangin out at the mall....
Personally, Pauls experience speaks more to the unifying force of a social networking phenomenom and the 'lighter' side of people than the dark side.