Thursday, September 17, 2015

The Difference between Facebook and Twitter

 Preface :
For the first time in History the truth in events and motives is no longer the preserve of the establishment media. The internet makes it possible for individuals to “both know the  truth" and to "make it known". For the Christian, the internet also gives a greatly expanded means of “bearing witness”. It is also a window along the road to Jericho. ( Luke 10:25-37)  The hurt and injured show up here in real time and the Lord will hold us accountable if we “Pass by on the other side”.

To make a broad generalization, Twitter looks out at the world and Facebook looks in. 

(1) Twitter allows you to Follow or Unfollow virtually anyone you wish without apology.
 Facebook dredges up all sorts of complicated connections between people, you may have known or were known to someone you know, but I would be embarrassed to even claim such as friends, let alone share my recipes or baby pictures with such a vague or tenuous connection.

(2) Twitter does not allow you to be careless in your preparation. Whatever you have to say has to be brief and to the point because many people who are following you are looking at what you say as the curtain drawn briefly on the “window of your soul.”
Facebook allows you to carry on time after time (ad nauseam) to people who know you and are making allowances for that person they know.

(3) Twitter allows you to put the ideas first instead of the relationship. If you are following someone, you have the option without apology to Retweet your agreement or to challenge their views knowing full well that many other Followers on both sides of a debate are benefiting from the exchange. Further there is no apology to Unfollowing a person with which you share nothing.
Because Facebook majors on friends and maintaining friendship, the subject matter is innocuous  and decreasingly so. Whatever you say has to be nice. Unintelligible is better than quarrelsome .

(4) On Twitter, the ease of Following allows one to witness an active person's world view in action … and what you witness as others respond to the human drama is a catalyst to developing your own “world view” . 
Facebook (in my experience) frowns on anyone raising the level of posts to that exalted height. Keeping the contributions bland is the unspoken code. 

(5) Twitter allows you to make new friends from people who share some or all of your "world view”. You are a different person now when compared to who you were 10 years ago, and your world view, if you're  a free thinker, will undergo gradual change. For the Christian believer, this assumes your foundation in the Lord is like a “Rock”  - unchanging. In fact changes in your world view are to be considered the Spirit’s progressive revelation.
Facebook - majors on levels of association that are based on your social and family history. If your world view is maturing, the friends you have had in the past, will not be your friends now. They may have you in a box or channel that cannot be disturbed. New truth is not necessarily their game and many will refuse to take instruction from one they have known personally, or one who has obviously been influenced by persons unknown to them. Therefore, if you are going to participate on Facebook you must forgo any issue of real significance.

(6) Twitter is liberating in that it addresses the whole world. No one’s views are so unique that you will not find kindred spirits. Those kindred spirits properly joined together become a movement  and movements can become positive revolutions in a world of evil events .
Facebook can never aspire to this level.

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