There’s been some ‘research‘ about Twitter by Pear Analytics claiming that “Pointless Babble” represented “40.55% of the total tweets captured”.

What’s interesting is that these folks completely miss the importance of banter in the building of social bonds between human beings.

On Twitter it is a bit hard for us to sit together & check out our buddies for fleas.  So the banter & seemingly frivolous chatter helps to bridge the gap that would be bridged by other means in real life.

The many ambient contacts that we have every day are the cement that binds our social connections.  The casual conversations at the coffee cart or water cooler create a level of comfort between us.  And this level of comfort makes it easier to work, play or socialise together.

Twitter is a great way to have that kind of ambient social contact between people who are not physically proximate.

It’s a pity some people don’t understand how important these seemingly trivial and non-threatening social communications are in building relationships and community.

Don’t forget to check out some critiques of the Pear perspective on Twitter:

Pear Analytics Twitter Report: Criticisms of the coding methods … by Stephen Dann – BTW the comments on this post are especially amusing & worth the effort

Twitter babble twaddle – by Stilgherrian

Stephen Fry

Graham Linehan

Note: This post is reproduced from my Posterous blog