Twitter: Boon or Bane?

Social Networking Sites like Facebook, Friendster, Multiply, Plurk and Twitter have been invading the internet since the start of the 21^st century. Take Twitter for instance which has been around since July 2006 and has been a trend in countries like the United States where it originated. It instantly became famous with Hollywood celebrities, politicians and even ordinary people.

However, twitter only became a trend in the Philippines sometime on the year 2009. Some say twitter became a replacement for social media site Friendster who slowly became obsolete in the later years. Twitter consumption in the country is rising every year.

Tweeps (twitter users) are very much surprised upon reading a tweet from COMELEC Spokesperson James Jimenez last September 7, 2012 that COMELEC Chairman Sixto Brillantes, Jr. has already joined the world of Twitter which the latter confirmed the following day. This was even featured in GMA News online with the title “Never too old to tweet: Comelec Chairman Brillantes now on Twitter”.

Imagine, at the age of 72 years old, Chairman Brillantes showed Filipino netizens that having a Twitter account does not have an age requirement. To think that in the present age, senior citizens are already considered as way past the internet age. But what is impressive that more and more old people become active in SNS despite their age. Despite their apparent lack of computer skills, senior citizens are turning to SNS as a hobby.

From 4 to 34 followers in less than 4 minutes, Chairman Brillantes is really attracting more and more tweeps to follow him on Twitter. Comparing to this generation who started using the twitter at such a young age, 72 years old is already way past being a senior citizen but still Chairman Brillantes was able to grasp how Twitter works.

With SNS, everything is possible for whomever, whenever, and wherever.