Archive for October 2010

Just words?

It’s 4:45PM on a Friday afternoon. It’s the first day of October, and the first real day it’s felt like fall. I’m partaking in all my favorite fall things like wearing a lightweight coat, sweater, and boots, and drinking a pumpkin spice latte. I’ve been enjoying a quiet, yet busy day at the office listening to the leaves on the tree in front of my window rustle as the wind blows. Yet, all I can do is think about my plans for the night: seeing The Social Network.

I’m not seeing the movie because I’m a social media nerd, but because I love a good character-driven plot and I firmly believe that that’s what this movie will be. I’m seeing the movie with a dozen or so of my “close” Twitter friends whom I’ve gradually gotten to know over the past months through social media and, eventually, in-person networking events. I’m sure there’ll be some people disappointed that the movie won’t focus on the culture around Facebook and how it’s changed our society. However, I believe we’ll get a perceptive look at the man behind the social network and his motivations for its development.

Mark Zuckerberg has forever changed our generation. Moreover, his invention has forever changed our language and the ways in which we communicate. No longer is our generation’s lack of attention span be blamed on quick edits in music videos on MTV; it’s increasingly blamed on our consumption of social media. This probably isn’t an inaccurate assumption. I’m guessing that wasn’t Zuckerberg’s intention, but it happened.

Now, we’re consuming information in shorter and shorter segments, with fewer and fewer words. A status update here, a relationship update here. If you don’t document it on Facebook, did it ever really happen?

On Twitter, words don’t even matter – it’s all about characters, 140 or less. Crimes of inaccurate spellings and improper grammar usage are committed by even the most intelligent and savvy tweeters out there, and it’s perfectly acceptable.

Without Facebook and, eventually, Twitter, who knows where our language would be. Would we continue to shorten and hone our messages into characters instead of points or messages?

So that leads me to ask my next question, are words just words? Have they lost their value in our culture? Have they lost their ability to move people and cause them to take action? I don’t think so.

This morning, I was reading a review of The Social Network in a newspaper (yes, they still exist). The article quickly made me realize and remember that people still know how to use their words, and use them well. The reviewer drew analogies comparing Zuckerberg’s rise to fame to that of fictional character Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane. In three sentences (39 words or 215 characters), the author is able to sum up both movies accurately and eloquently:

So, both men get wildly famous and wildly rich by being driven by different desires. One wants to create, one wants to have. But do their reasons really matter when they leave a trail of wounded friends behind them?

I’m not sure how, or why, those words moved me so. Maybe because I once wanted to be an arts critic or I value the ability to write sentences without overuse of conjunctions (because it’s a skill I’ve yet to master). But, maybe it’s because I still value long-form writing. Maybe despite my obsession with social media communications, I still have a soft spot in my heart for a well-written piece of journalism.

As the author finished her review about the movie, she said the “real story, of course, is yet to be written.” This can be said for not only Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, and social media, but also for the value of the written word.

I, for one, will start challenging myself not to see words in terms of character counts or interesting status updates, but important tools to ensure my future as an intelligent human being. Why? Because words are not just words. They’re what hold us together as a culture and allow us to communicate with one another. Let’s beging valuing them again.