Her name is Helen A.S. Popkin and she calls us twitterers narcissistic?

Even if I DID have two middle names..or a middle name and two last names...or whatever it takes in order to warrant two initials between my first and last name..I wouldn't be narcissistic enough to include them in my periodicals..

So I was annoyed by the article this woman wrote..had to do a write up on it for a class, decided to put it on my blog..to share my anger with the world. Because..you know.. I love myself.


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In this article, MSNBC writer Helen A.S. Popkin decides to share with the world her dislike of the application Twitter. Now, I understand that everyone should be able to step up onto the soapbox and say their piece about whatever they like but, the least the naysayers can do before they start their denouncement of something, is to at least educate themselves of the pros and cons beforehand. What kind of a name is Helen A.S. Popkin anyway? That’s right Helen, I hate your name and I don’t care where you inherited it from! Anyway, dear Helen decides to go off on a tirade about her dislike for the web application Twitter, stating all her thick-witted reasons, letting us all know that she is in no way interested in anyone else’s lives and she goes on to inform us that Twitter is a huge waste of time. She calls Twitter a narcissist magnet and likens it to “texting while driving”. Well Helen, I liken you to that guy I met at Verizon Wireless today who didn’t comprehend why he couldn’t get his 4 free phones without signing up for a plan. Yeah, he didn’t have all the information necessary to make any kind of educated judgement and neither do you.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a huge fan of Twitter. This is not because I’m a narcissist, nor do I feel that texting while driving is a past-time that anyone should pursue. Twitter, like any other social medium on the internet, is only going to be as good as you make it. The greatest thing about Twitter is you only receive updates from people that you follow. That’s right Helen, all those narcissistic people that you are discussing, those would be the people YOU chose to follow. Twitter is so much more than a “drive by comment”.

I started using Twitter early on this year just to see what all the fuss was about. One day I was participating in a live podcast recording called “EdTechTalk” where technology directors throughout the state come together and talk about different issues and subjects, usually regarding technology, that people coming across in education today. Near the end of the show everyone started handing out their Twitter usernames to keep in touch with one another. I didn’t have one, so I made one really quickly and exchanged it with a few people. From there my followings/followers grew and soon enough I was connected with quite a few professionals in my field from all across the country who I could bat around ideas and problems with. Since then I’ve used Twitter as a tool. On more than one occasion someone has come across an excellent new piece of software or a useful new web app and shared it on Twitter for everyone to see. Things like Dropbox, Virtualbox, Windows 7 beta test downloads..and even an excellent seed program that Acer started up that allowed schools to try out their netbooks and new desktops. The best part about Twitter is it works on YOUR time. Unlike instant messaging, you don’t need to be present for the messages to come through. People blog throughout the day and then when you have time you can read what has been posted. It is also more convenient than email because you don’t need to address your blogs to everyone, the people who follow you will read them at their leisure. Twitter, and other applications like it, are excellent collaboration tools and should be taken more seriously. There are many excellent way to put the application to use, some of which I’m sure haven’t even been thought of yet.

So, in conclusion, to say that Twitter is “juvenile” or that it is simply a place for people to feed their narcissistic needs is just uncultivated ignorance. Just because the writer of the article has yet to find an excusable (at least in their mind) use of the application, that doesn’t mean that they have the right to tear down everyone who does. And yeah, I saw the blurb at the end of the article saying that “it has its place” but you can tell what general ambiance the writer was shooting for here. I guess the simplest response to this would be, who cares if people write about themselves on Twitter, you’re not forced to follow them are you?

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