Spiked: It must be beeping
Anne-Friederike Heinrich, a freelance contributor to *Werbewoche*, on insights the world doesn't need.
Actually, we've always known it: Twitterers are better people. Dr. Christine Greenhow, Assistant Professor of Social Media and Education at Michigan State University, has now finally provided evidence for this assumption. In a press release, which she recently distributed via email rather than Twitter, she states: "Tweeting is changing the way we read and write. " Greenhow should know. After all, she teaches her students in her own course how to use Twitter - and how to use it "correctly". Whatever she thinks it is.
I think, so I'm crazy
Anyone who has been sending 140 messages around the world since the first fluttering of the light blue beeping bird may lean back in amazement at this information from Michigan and take a deep breath: "Oh, you have to study tweeting to do it right? Then we must have been doing something (or probably everything) wrong for years.
No wonder this is changing the way we read and write. Remember: the media used to be the "fourth power in the state", polished language as a drawn sword. Today, zero-value information such as "I'm off to take a shower" and "My father has a broken thigh" have become news worth reading. Model Jekami, also thanks to Twitter - or rather undank. Anyone who regularly reads such news zeros eventually finds them exciting and, in the most dramatic cases, ends up writing some themselves. Twitter not only changes the way we read and write, but also the way we think: "I thought that was interesting." Think again!
Twitter makes you fitter
But back to university: Greenhow claims to have found in her Twitter course that Twitter users concentrate better on lessons, are more interested in their fellow students and get better grades. So Twitter and other social networks benefit education and social behavior, she says. How nice.
Greenhow knows all this after only 949 of his own tweets (https://twitter.com/chrisgreenhow, as of November 4, 2012). Mmmmmm. Don't trust a study that you haven't faked yourself! The Twitter professor leaves open the scientific method she used to arrive at her findings. However, she makes it clear that she wants to show students, teachers and parents ways in which they can use Twitter to improve their education or the education of their pupils and children. Maybe like this: "@son: Off to bed and box off! Math test tomorrow. Mom."
All this sermon gives me the lasting impression that Ms. Greenhow tweeted a lot before distributing her press release. Or she's simply beeping.
