Twitter, the simplistic social networking site

May 22, 2009 • written by Signe Swanson, 09-10 Photography Editor  
Filed under Feature

        From celebrities to ordinary people, many are deciding to join the social networking site known as Twitter. Though it may not be as popular as other social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter’s popularity is rising rapidly.

        Twitter’s concept is to answer the question, “What are you doing?” by making updates called tweets. Everything from the site’s design, premise and the act of twittering is simplistic. Twittering could not be explained any plainer than by junior Justine Skauge.

         “It’s not very complex at all,” Skauge said. “You type in your status in the box, hit enter and voilà.”

        Though Twitter is a social networking site, it lacks features found on other social networking sites, such as apps.  Twitter is used for spreading news instead of socializing. Senior Andrew Lenzmeier thinks this is the reason students are not using Twitter as much.

        “Twitter is something where you spread small bits of news and high schoolers don’t have much to share,” Lenzmeier said. “It’s usually used by journalists to update stories or to quickly spread important or interesting information.”

         Its use for spreading news has caused Twitter to become more popular among adults. Politicians and journalists use Twitter, but so do celebrities. Sophomore Taylor Dahl said because of the number of celebrities beginning to use Twitter, its popularity among teens is rising.

        “Since we care about these older actors, singers and celebrities that use it, we are going to use it to get information so we can feel connected with celebrities,” Dahl said.

        Smaller areas such as North Dakota have yet to catch the twitter trend. The Twitter craze might arise in North Dakota, but that isn’t saying much, considering social networking sites go in and out of style.

        “It’s already big with older, better educated people in places with bigger populations,” Lenzmeier said. “But I think by the time it becomes big here, it will be replaced by something newer.”