Arab Revolutions, Twitter & Narcissism

Pardon me for saying this, but what is happening now in the Arab world doesn’t have a goddamned thing to do with twitter, Facebook, Mah-jong, or any other social media.    What is happening in the streets of the Middle East is the same thing that happened in Europe in 1848 and 1871 and on several other occasions.   People are demanding better government.    The struggle for just and enlightened government is a long one, stretching across centuries. The Arab world is, for the most part, governed by repressive regimes more focused on their own wealth and power than on the welfare of the people.   At some point, people get tired of it, and start to demand better government.    - Bill James

I'm a big fan of Twitter, and I think it has its uses, but it did not cause the revolts in the Arab region, nor do I think it had much influence in keeping them going. I agree with Bill James, people should stop taking about the role of Twitter & Facebook in promoting civil upheaval in the Middle East. Get off my porch!

I love Twitter, because it allows me to read very up-to-date information about what is going on in sports. All the latest injury news in football is on Twitter first. The first place to read reactions to trades is on Twitter. And more than ever, you only need to follow aggregated accounts, where Twitter expert volunteers will comment on and retweet anything that you might want to know about the latest for your favorite sport, or your favorite team. I've read that sports handicappers get all of their team & player news from Twitter, and pay interns to scour the service to look for this information.

In other words, Twitter is great for letting us know what his happening *right now*, in any place or in any field that we are interested in (provided that people there are tweeting).

I think this is why we tend to over-estimate the importance of Twitter for the Arab revolutions. Twitter has allowed us to follow the drama in Tahrir Square, while sitting at coffee shops drinking chai lattes. It's tempting to think that the service is doing something for the people in Egypt, as well as for us. However, maybe all that it does is to inform us, encouraging us to to act, or to do nothing.

We love to think that our opinions on the Middle East help to improve their government. That's how we like to think, as Americans. But they probably don't. So over-valuing the contribution of Twitter to their revolution is just another expression of our narcissism.