Tweet for me babe, tweet for you, tweet for me coz I want you to!

I had a lovely breakfast this morning - I had muesli and fresh fruit and my usual co you must be joking... what the fu #crudelanguagewarning

 

Now if @shanewarne can tweet, surely a mature, educated woman can figure this out and express some I am running out again oh sh#!

 

Come on!!!!  I need to learn how to tweet.  You see, I have discovered the perfect job for me.  I am going to tweet for celebrities.  No, wait, I know what you are thinking – celebs can do that for themselves, Lisa.  No – Mary Cross (2011) has confirmed it for me  - celebs and pollies employ people to do it.  Some even have robots doing it!  Cross (2011) says that 75% of tweets are posted by only 5% of the users and that 39% of twitterati use Twitter only to follow celebrities – I have to get me a piece of that!

Now, I have met and known some celebrities in my time.  My personal favourite was during a night out in the early 1990s at Silvers nightclub when I met none other than my pre-teen dream, Dennis Lillee.  Now, Silvers was not my first venue that night and I was firing on all cylinders and found it completely appropriate to hug the delectable Mr Lillee and scream at him “D K Lillleeeeeee!  D K Lillllleeeeee!”  Although he was muttering something about having to call Carpet Court, and despite his having considerably less hair than he did in my dreams, I am sure he experienced the same thrill.  Upon leaving the venue, I spent the next few hours yelling at anyone who might listen – unwitting taxi drivers, bouncers, friends, other people eating hotdogs –“ D K Lilleeeeeeeee!”

On reflection, and without embarrassment, I can see now that my reaction was like a form of pre-technology celebrity tweeting.   It would have been perfect for Twitter – invasive, slightly banal, slightly creative, trivial, boring (Cross, 2011).

But by tweeting for a celebrity , I can go beyond being my edited self (Turkle, 2011, Cross, 2011) and work at being an edited someone else!  It may sound frivolous, but while Twitter is so popular, wouldn’t it be great to use it to make a positive difference in people’s lives?  Not an aim of the likes of Shane Warne or the Kardashians, me thinks.

Dom Sagolla (2009) asks of us: what will we do with this ‘most powerful, ubiquitous, indomitable communication tool?’  I quite like his advice to use fairness, accuracy and freedom from bias.  Wish everyone was taking it.  If I could tweet for a celebrity while Twitter lasted, aside from possibly getting to some fabulous parties (not at Silvers), I would hope to just help people think, not tweet, for themselves.

But am I alone thinking that twitter won’t be around forever (except in the archives)?

Just like Dennis Lillee would be showing me his old record collection right now (Sherbert, the Who…) I bet so too will Justin Bieber be showing his younger third wife his old list of tweets, while she has her finger wedged in her ear doing… something else…

 

***Just as an aside – watch this clip to see where I got the idea for the title – just substitute the word ‘strip’ for ‘tweet’ – it has given me endless entertainment.

 

And another thing... Here is our poster that we made this week about twitter - it shows how twitter is being embraced by individuals, media and emergency serivces in a crisis situation.  Many thanks to tara, Jess and Molly for their help in making it.




















References

Cross, M, 2011, Bloggerati, Twitterati: How Blogs and Twitter are Transforming Popular Culture, Praeger, viewed 5 December 2011, http://reader.eblib.com.au.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/(S(ilxqhwau52jsoxf1swhsgddd))/Reader.aspx?p=713477&o=132&u=g2pJ9qQPo2UEqFbavkWlXA%3d%3d&t=1354700453&h=09B70862CBF895C14D9C3AA992AD96EC3C05CA28&s=7280322&ut=405&pg=64&r=img&c=-1&pat=n#

Man 2 Man, 1986 Male Stripper, viewed 5 December 2012, uploaded to Youtube by Jake Vanek, 19 March 2009

Sagolla, Dom 2009, 140 Characters : A Style Guide for the Short Form, e-book, accessed 05 December 2012, <http://swin.eblib.com.au.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=469863>.

Turkle, Sherry 2011, Alone Together : Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, e-book, accessed 5 December  2012, <http://swin.eblib.com.au.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=684281>.

Image source: Author unknown, 1975, Dennis Lillee: fast bowler, viewed 5 December 2012, National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-vn3075746

 

O-ooh, ring, ring, why don’t you give me a call ? No Abba, no

So I sit down to write this blog when…

Ring Ring…

What in the …???  Hello?  What are you calling me on my mobile for??  I don’t have time to talk, I’m in the middle of blogging.  Just Facebook me and I’ll tweet the answer to you, or better yet, just google it.  Can’t talk now.   Sheesh. 

Why ring me??  I could have been in the middle of anything, except possibly a very important business meeting – I haven’t been in one of those for a long time.  But it got me thinking – do people really use mobile phones for talking to each other anymore?

Mobile phones have become a part of our everyday lives – some may even try to argue they are becoming a physical part of our bodies or our bodies are becoming technologically dependent (Richardson, 2008).  So why do I feel a bit awkward talking on one these days?

The genesis of the decline could hark back to the public transport experience of 2004 when a lady found it completely natural to call her friend while seated in a packed, non-air conditioned, commuter-hour tram and give a very detailed, blow-by-blow account of her visit to the gynaecologist for a D & C (google it – if you must).   The uncomfortable looks from the actual physical people in her presence went completely unnoticed.  However, I do think all around her bonded in our distress of being an audience to this intimate account.  Hans Geser (2006) theorises that we think of our mobile phones in emotional terms which can cause, among other behaviours, irrational behaviour including displaying inappropriate intimacy in public spaces.   I know I felt like I had to marry this lady after what I heard, but luckily, she got off the tram before me.

Anyway, this is all leading me to the obvious decline in actually calling people on your mobile phone.  Now we are so connected to all types of media via our mobile phones, laptops and tablets that we have so much more to do on them!   Teenagers avoid calling friends and prefer to text, facebook and message.  Surprisingly – so do adults! ( Turkle, 2011).  Turkle explains that phone calls are now often seen as too demanding in today’s time-poor, multitasking lifestyles, as well as too demanding on the person called (remember me in my imagined important meeting?)  Instead we opt for different social experiences that allow us time to consider what we want to say, whether we should indeed say it and how we will be portrayed when we do communicate it.  I am still deciding how I feel about this ‘edited life’ (Turkle, 2011), but I am certainly involved in it, unwittingly or not.

It is a way to overcome the “complexities associated with the practical aspects of dialogue” (Meerwath et al, 2009), that is, who participates in the dialogue, the power and status of individuals involved, opportunities taken or relinquished.  Now, we can take the necessary time to sort ourselves out, or at least who we want to be at that time with that person, before we send out our message…  But do we really..?

While I ponder that, I am going to try this product and call that person back and talk to them – so vintage cool… 

(By the way – I know what you are thinking – mobile phones don’t go Ring Ring anymore.  Please tell me how to describe, in writing, a modern phone ringing, onomatopoeiaically speaking!)

References

Freesmartphone, 2011, Pop Phone makes you want to talk not text, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26KE3yETmZA viewed on youtube 25 November 2012

Geser, H 2006, 'Is the Cell Phone Undermining the Social Order?: Understanding Mobile Technology from a Sociological Perspective', Knowledge, Technology & Policy, 19, 1, p. 8, MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 21 November 2012.

Meerwarth, TL.; Gluesing, JC.; Jordan, B 2009, Mobile Work, Mobile Lives : Cultural Accounts of Lived Experiences, e-book, accessed 21 November 2012, http://reader.eblib.com.au.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/(S(l2r0izkg3ftpnk0espsgkfhs))/Reader.aspx?p=428280&o=132&u=g2pJ9qQPo2UEqFbavkWlXA%3d%3d&t=1353494757&h=FCBA8F12D99EAC9FB538B8B06F24F6A29DF751BF&s=7231258&ut=405&pg=71&r=img&c=-1&pat=n#

Richardson, I 2008, Pocket technospaces : the bodily incorporation of mobile media, viewed 21 November 2012, http://librarysearch.swinburne.edu.au/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=dedupmrg26924754&indx=1&recIds=dedupmrg26924754&recIdxs=0&elementId=0&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&dscnt=0&dum=true&vl(2945245UI1)=all_items&tab=default_tab&vl(2945244UI0)=any&dstmp=1353491967624&vl(freeText0)=Pocket+technospaces%3A+the+bodily+incorporation+of+mobile+media&vid=SWIN2&mode=Basic

Turkle, Sherry 2011, Alone Together : Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, e-book, accessed 21 November 2012, <http://swin.eblib.com.au.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=684281>.

Image source: Pruitt, S, Funny girl eating phone, viewed 25 November 2012, http://business.time.com/2012/09/13/groceries-or-mobile-phone-plenty-of-consumers-spend-more-on-the-latter/

 

 

 

 

 

There is a first time for everything...

Hello everyone ('everyone' - Lisa you are optimistic).  Here is where I will be starting my blogging journey.
Looking forward to it!