Harrison Bergeron and Twitter
When I was a teen I read Kurt Vonnegut’s 1961 short story, “Harrison Bergeron.” If you haven’t read it, then doing so would be time well spent. The story tells of a gruesome future version of democracy which enforces “all men are created equal” as a literal imperative. If you have above-average talent, the government hobbles you. If you’re smart, they make you wear an earpiece which blasts noise at regular intervals to distract you.
And so we come to Twitter… This is about culture, not about individuals.
The steady stream of tweets is at least as effective as the government enforced distractions in Bergeron’s society. Twitter isn’t a way to keep everyone connected, and these 140-character blasts aren’t the virtual synapses of a new neural network that spans all of society. Nothing could be further from reality. It turns out we don’t need Vonnegut’s “Handicapper General” to ensure that we’re adequately distracted. We’re more than happy to do it to ourselves voluntarily – we’re even eager!
It must be true that the internet is democratizing the world, but I’m not altogether sure I’m going to love the world we get as a result. It’s hard enough to focus without Twitter, and I don’t even have an earpiece blasting at me every 15 seconds! If you ask me, Twitter is more than just distracting: it will make/keep us “equal” in a Harrison Bergeron kind of way.
Rick Ross
Understanding grows from particular cases, if it grows at all. Here are some. I used Twitter four times today, to send three public and one private message.
The first use was to thank a colleague, who after yesterday’s introduction, in Twitter, by a third colleague, describing our mutual interest in Math 2.0, sent me 5 links (in two tweets) describing her Calculus pedagogy. These details aren’t in the thank-you note, but people who get to know me will be able to follow, curious can investigate our conversation through a threader tool, and when I actually incorporate the links into my Google Slide Show and tweet about it, there will be a link. (1)
The second use was to note to another colleague that his doctoral dissertation work (linked in the message), a game helping kids learn emotional well-being techniques, reminds me of an episode in “Ender’s Game” dealing with powers of two – and tell him I just sent his info to a relevant thread of my Natural Math mailing group (linked). (2)
The third was a message saying that I added the use of Twitter as a smart dissertation writing tool (linking the name of the person who does it, incidentally the same Calculus teacher) to my ongoing collection of Twitter uses (linked). (3)
The fourth was a private message telling the person who introduced us with Calculus teacher that I’d like to invite a graduate student he’s helping to get into math game design into a relevant LinedIn group conversation.
In these four uses, I see the themes of strengthening my ongoing projects and conversations, and growing ties with my community of practice, helping and being helped. I think today was pretty typical for my Twitter use. There are probably other themes, some dark and scary, that can emerge from this and other use cases.