When I was 11 years old in 1976, I wanted nothing more than a CB radio. The song “Convoy” had come out and everybody was talking about them. I was sure a CB radio was the coolest thing in the world.
By wheedling and cajoling and combining Christmas and birthday presents I managed to get my parents to buy me one – a Radio Shack CB walkie talkie, which I liked because it looked like something GI Joe carried. Also, being 11, I did not have a car in which to install one.
I took it out of the box, put in the batteries, turned it on… and almost immediately realized I had nothing in common with truckers. I think I got tired of it in about a week. As did many people who bought a CB that year, which explains its persistence as a shorthand reference for fads.
But the fact that I stopped pestering truckers for smokey reports I did not need did not affect the CB radio’s usefulness to them (in fact I’m sure it enhanced it). They kept on sharing information about road conditions and weather and speed traps, using it to connect with friends and pass the time on long trips. Judging by the technology aisles at the truck stop near my last job, those folks who understand the value are still using CB radios today.
I’m sure you see where I’m going with this. I don’t care how many people signed up for Twitter and never come back. Those are the people who probably had no need for it in the first place.
There are lots of people out there who, no matter how much they love Oprah and follow her advice, don’t really need or want to join the conversation. They get their news from TV or talk radio (or they don’t get it at all) and they either don’t have a lot of interests that are well-represented online, or they’re too busy to go out and find who’s talking about them.
That dynamic, of course, does not change the value that you and I see from blogs or social networks or Twitter. It just makes it a bit harder to justify to the folks who have a knee jerk reaction against anything popular.
If we wait it out, maybe they’ll stop talking about it. In the meantime, keep it between the ditches.
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