Twitter is a legit phenomenon. With hundreds of millions of users and growing, it has really became a part of everyday life. The term “Tweet” once reminded people of birds, but there is a whole new generation of people that think of Twitter when they hear it.
Of course with every phenomenon there is negative backlash. A lot of people “hate” Twitter for no more reason than the fact a lot of people love it. Other people go as far as to say that it is harmful to society. It contributes to some global attention deficit disorder or something. It trivializes the written word into text message sized sound bites!
Wah.
Besides the fact that people always overestimate the negative impacts of technology, I think they are wrong about it trivializing the written word. I would go as far as to say that Twitter actually helps people write better!
1. Concise – One of the first things you will learn in a journalism class is: KISS (keep it simple, stupid). Twitter enforces that to the max. You only have 140 characters to work with so you will have to think of creative ways to be concise. This will force you to be less flowery and get to the point. Brevity is the soul of wit after all.
2. Increases Vocab - Since you are locked into this character limit you will probably find yourself using an online dictionary or thesaurus once in awhile to find less wordy ways to say something. You might also try to find longer words that can take the place on phrases. Whatever the case is, if you Tweet regularly you will definitely build your vocabulary.
3. Editing - Twitter is a great place to practice your editing skills. You will constantly be tweaking tweets for size and effectiveness. You will send out thousands of Tweets eventually, and each one you will be editing. The Tweets may be small but attention to detail is actually a learned skill and you will be practicing it all the time.
Twitter doesn’t spell the end of the English language. Ut isn’t a harbinger of the death of conversation. It is just a simple website that people love to use (for now). In fact, not only is it harmless, I think using it can actually improve your writing.
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