“Everything I read on Twitter is drivel!” exclaimed a friend of mine. “People talking about this and that, but no real meat, no authenticity, no transparency.” He went on, “I want places where people want to have genuine, authentic, meaningful conversations. Twitter is just drivel.”
I thought about that awhile. There was no doubt that he was right, Twitter is mostly drivel. But the experiences I had with the social conversation service were a bit deeper. “Maybe drivel is important.” I replied.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, how much of day-to-day offline conversation is drivel? Yet we have to have it because the drivel allows us to feel out how interested people really are in me, my life, and in things that are important to me. We use drivel, like humor, to test the boundaries of relationship. If you don’t care about the drivel, you won’t ask for more. If you do ask, then maybe you care. I don’t know – that’s my gut feeling about it all. Maybe drivel is pretty important.”
A couple of days later, I talked with my wife about drivel as we got ready. “It’s all the little comments between the drivel that clue us into what’s going on in people’s lives.” She listened while doing her hair (She’s really good at that by the way – listening and getting things done at the same time. Amazing!) I went on, “You know what I mean – in the middle of the ‘I’m going to see this movie.’ or ‘I just got back from the store.’ comes ‘I got a letter from my brother in Iraq.’ or ‘My sister isn’t doing so well.’ Or maybe people stop talking altogether and we wouldn’t notice if we hadn’t been listening. If we don’t get used to the rhythm of drivel in someone’s life, then we miss important cues for things that really matter.”
Thinking a bit further, I guess the question is, “How do we keep from being drowned by drivel so that we can do something with the important bits in between? ” I don’t know, that’s the part I’m working on. If you have any suggestions, feel free to comment.
