As Twitter considers moving away from the straight reverse chronological list, blogger Chris Thilk takes a look at how Twitter might be considering to become more like Snapchat, a service of the moment. His blog post “What Twitter ‘Is’” is worth a read. The timing of this post is interesting for me as it intersects how I’ve been thinking about our culture’s obsession with getting notifications in a list format.
For the past couple weeks I’ve been able to break away from all things media (thank you marriage and honeymoon). Now that I’m back online, all these various lists (like email, twitter, notifications) and places to get updates are making me realize, “wow, I really would tend to lots of different lists to gets updates.”
The younger generation might be onto something where it’s not just about the RIGHT NOW, but it’s about living your life in the moment. There’s a slight difference between the two. The slight traditionalists (like myself) revolt against the RIGHT NOW attitude, because it ignores the past. It worships whatever is the freshest and new.
But there might be something about living in the moment. It’s not about chasing after lists of notifications. It simply takes in what is happening now. Not overly concerned about the past. Nor overly concerned about the future.
Perhaps obsessively tending to these notification lists is tied to fear. Fear of missing out. Fear of not being knowledgeable about the world. Fear of not being a good conversationalist with others.
But if we are able to live confidently in the present, we can truly love others and the world we live in.