The first thing one must recognize and, for one’s own sanity, accept about Twitter is that:

you’re and your are apparently interchangeable, as are

they’re, their, and there.

And as long as the word is still decipherable, vowels may be stricken from each and any word to achieve that elusive 160 characters–

example: ‘grl’ is a commonly accepted Twitter spelling for ‘girl’.

Now, although these grammar mistakes may sound to others, as it does to me, like nails on a chalkboard, at least I can comprehend them. There are, however, many other abbreviations on Twitter that, as hard as I may try, I cannot keep up with. The classic ‘lol’ or ‘laugh out loud’ has now been deemed a dinosaur in comparison to the new abbreviations the Twitter community comes up with everyday. Examples may include:

YOLO- You Only Live Once

FTW- For The Win

RT (most common)- Re-Tweet

Now, that all being said, why do thousands upon thousands of people continue to join and become addicted to Twitter daily (including myself)? Orenstein taps into this phenomena with careful and accurate observations. She quotes sociologist Erving Goffman’s famous argument stating that “All of life is performance: we act out a role in every interaction, adapting it based on the nature of the relationship or context at hand.” Although Goffman’s argument came out in the 1950s, it is still absolutely applicable today. People seem to like to talk about themselves. They like to boast and get praise, complain and get sympathy, make jokes and get laughs– and I’m not going to lie, I like these things, too. In addition to people liking to talk about themselves, they are also, by nature, curious. Curious as to what their friends are doing, their enemies, how everyone feels about last night’s football game (Tebow, anyone?), what celebrities are thinking when the cameras are off, the list goes on.

Twitter is also a great way to feel good about one’s own thoughts, beliefs, or activities. Embarrassingly enough, my favorite person to follow on Twitter is SororityGirlProblems, a Twitter account dedicated to, as the name alludes, ‘problems’ a sorority girl may have. Now in this case, ‘problems’ is a term used loosely. Her tweets are usually superficial, ridiculous, and wildly funny. Now, I wouldn’t consider myself a shallow person, but many of her tweets speak directly to that little place inside myself (and most other people I know, don’t lie now), that does tend to think things that I probably wouldn’t say out loud. Reading someone talk about many of the unspoken things that are going on inside my head make me feel like less of a bad person for thinking them, and give me a sense of comradery, with someone whose name I don’t even know! I think this speaks to Orenstein’s other main point that “The fun of Twitter and, I suspect, its draw for millions of people, is its infinite potential for connection, as well as its opportunity for self-expression.” She then goes on to ask multiple questions that all culminate into the worry:  is this good for society? That I don’t know, and neither does Orenstein! Twitter is the mark of a changing society, and whether people want to argue if that’s good or bad is somewhat irrelevant, because change, especially on the social media front,  is inevitable.