REFLECTING ON TWITTER: A PROTOTYPE FOR HYPERMODERN SOCIETY

Social scientists have been discussing the advent of an “information society”, as information technologies have started to dominate social life since at least the 1970s. The most important infrastructural element of this information society is the internet which enables dissemination of information in a very efficient and effective way, independent from the physical proximity between two networked computers. The internet is non-hierarchical (horizontal) in the sense that it does not have an ultimate power center which determines the structure of the networks and the contents that flow within and between networks. The formation of the networks and the content of information disseminated through them are shaped by the users. Hence, the interplay between internet and individuals is bidirectional; individuals structure the networks and the structure of networks, in turn, shapes the perception of individuals regarding self, community, and time. This paper analyzes how and why people use Twitter—both a social networking site and a micro-blogger; to what extent Twitter use reflect the constituting principles of contemporary society such as conception of time and how it may affect our notion of community and social relations. It argues that Twitter represents a replica of hypermodern society with the apprehension of time streaming embedded in its use, clustering of users around personal and professional communities and centers and the strategies that users develop in order to deal with the complexity of online hypermodernity. Twitter, and social network sites in general, are structured by the values and conceptions of the contemporary society and we need to consider them within a greater zeitgeist. The main function of these services is to reinforce and enhance the conceptions and experience of hypermodernity and to increase the rate of social change further.