Tweets… for research?

by Fleidy Aponte

In his first book Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection, author Jacob Silverman uses his knowledge in integrating politics, technology and sociology to demonstrate how detrimental the incessant connection to social media can truly be to our lives. The progression of technology throughout the years has caused for a number of the fastest growing industries in modern history and it is no thanks to our job as hungry consumers. Our once private lives have now become monitored and our once personal dilemmas have now become lively entertainment at the easy click of a mouse. We are now more accessible than we have ever been before and we have absolutely no idea. This wake-up call and guide for social media users and tech savvy people is intended to help consumers regain control of their online lives as they dive deeper into the world of technology.

So how does Jacob Silverman warn us about social media’s obsessive grip on our lives and how does he decide to prove this to us in a way that we’d be able to actually understand? By taking himself straight to social media of course.

On May of 2013 Jacob Silverman created a Twitter account for the purpose of his research. A lot of what he mentions in his book revolves around the mentality that social media users have started to reconsturct their lives around these types of sites. We post things based on how we want others to perceive us or what we think others want to see of us. Due to this, we lose all sense of self and become social media’s puppet. The minute that we begin to invest deeper into technology and social media, the minute that we forget our truest selves.

In this video, Silverman speaks about his findings and the general process of conducting the research for his book.

Aside from all the factual data and research Jacob was able to find for his book, his new Twitter account allowed him to include some of his own personal findings for the benefit of his research. Here are some of his tweets from his research account:

Most of Silverman’s tweets relate to his personal life and can be seen as rather funny. None of the work relating to the book is ever mentioned in these tweets. Only in his biography is it stated that his account was created for the personal research of his book. Jacob takes it upon himself to dive deeper into the new world of technology that he himself was trying to warn us about.