Twitter: The Sims of the Internet

I’ll admit that what I first heard about Twitter, I wasn’t really interested. I asked the usual question people ask when they hear about something new on the internet: “What’s the point?”

For a while now, I’ve wanted to write a blog post about Twitter, but there has been so much written about it already, that I didn’t want to bore my readers with the usual. So I began the pursuit of developing my thoughts from a different angle, and I ended up with the most unusual comparison: The Sims.

At first glance, the two seem to be as related as a finger painting is to a coconut, but hear me out.

How is the game, The Sims, fun? I won’t deny that it’s extremely addicting and with the recent release of The Sims 3, I’ve spend almost every waking hour with the game, but have you ever asked that question? A typical experience players have with The Sims is going through the routine of eating, bathroom, going to work, waiting for them to return, building a few relationships, and then bed. Once that “day” is over, you repeat it the next.

You can build houses, earn promotions at work, get married, etc... but the bulk of your time is spent playing out the daily activities I mentioned in the previous paragraph. The interesting thing is, that this seemingly mundane gameplay formula works. The Sims is one of the most popular computer games in the world, so simulated routines can’t be all that boring, can they?

So what’s the point of The Sims? Well, there isn’t one. You casually live life in ways you wouldn’t or couldn’t in real life. If in reality your stuck in a dead end job, you have the freedom to pursue any career path available in the game. This gives you ways to explore different personalities and maybe act like someone you may not have the courage to be in real life. Basically, the open ended nature of The Sims has no end goal. You decide who you want to be.

So how does this have anything to do with Twitter? Much like how The Sims allows you to become someone else for a little while, Twitter has that same power but in a real environment, not a virtual one. When you first join Twitter, you have a fresh start; the same way your sim begins his or her life in the game.

Through your tweets, you have the freedom of telling the world anything, and those who care, will listen. Since there’s a high chance you will never meet many of your followers, you can be pretty much anyone (personality wise) that you want to be.

What I mean is, if your naturally shy, you can be outgoing on Twitter. The same way works in reverse. If your normally outgoing, you can be shy on Twitter and wait for people to find you. It can be a lot of fun to see who finds you interesting.
Who knew all of this was possible in a 140 characters or less?


As your Sim progresses through life, they will engage in simple banter where you select certain actions which are then translated to the language of the Sims. Through that simple method of conversation, your Sim can build lasting relationships which can lead to falling in love and starting a family.

Now I don’t think it’s likely that you will start a family from Twitter, but the concept of the simple “chit-chat” found The Sims applies. You don’t have the option of being incredibly descriptive on Twitter. You need to be direct and to the point and its possible to get to know someone well in a very short amount of time.

I truly believe we can start lasting online friendships using just 140 characters. We live in a world ruled by internet communications but until now, it’s been difficult to get noticed by the rest of the world. Social networks are complex enough to sustain long distant relationships (whether that’s friendly or more) but they lack the simplicity to get your voice out there in the first place. With Twitter, it’s easy to get noticed by anyone.

Micro-blogging is all about beginnings and realizing the potential of being one’s self in a highly public setting. We often fail to recognize that something’s great when it first starts out. Since Twitter is relatively new, we don’t really know where it can take us yet, so regarding it as useless is almost like buying the safest shares possible in the stock-market: a small gain for a small risk. But if you have faith in a risky stock, the payoff can be immensely higher.

The more users invest in Twitter, the better it becomes. There are plenty of reports that many new users stop tweeting after their initial logins, but those people aren’t the ones meant for the service. The true users have faith that their involvement with Twitter has a direction and purpose.

So despite my initial qualms, I believed there was something more to Twitter, and I was right. I’ve established connections with so many people who share my passion for innovative consumer electronics and as a result, Twitter has become a nearly instantaneous news feed of the latest and greatest developments from the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Verizon, and more.

I think what’s even more interesting are the events surrounding the recent announcement and release of the iPhone 3G S. AT&T’s decisions on early upgrade pricing and delay of both MMS and tethering, outraged huge numbers of iPhone owners. It turns out, many of them are also Twitter users, and they joined together and voiced their discontent directly at AT&T. As a pleasant surprise, AT&T listened, and while the MMS and tethering time frames are unchanged, many angry iPhone users were rewarded with the full subsidized price a little earlier than they would have been..


Is Twitter simply about updates, or something more?


I know a lot of people who don’t like The Sims, and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when I ask them what they thought of the game, their answers all sound alike: bored because there was nothing to do. There are so many things to do in The Sims but you have to go out and experience them on your own, they don’t come to you. If you lead your sims into a boring life, you as the player will also be bored. If just use Twitter at it’s surface, you will also find it useless.

The rewards of putting your time and personality out there, can bring you many new friendships and experiences from Twitter. These can then be carried over to the more complex networks, and grow into lasting relationships and connections with people you might never have met without it.





Sometimes the truly pointless, can make the biggest impact of all.





Until next time,



EE