Is Twitter Changing Real Life Social Interactions?
Jun 24 2008 
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Last week I had the pleasure of flying out to Portland for Ignite Portland 3. I had a fabulous time and met some really awesomesauce people including one of my biggest idols Marshall Kirkpatrick, fellow Grand Effect Network member and now team writer for ReadWriteWeb, Frederic of The Last Podcast, and a host of other people that I’ll mention in another post that’s all about the trip to Portland. What I’m going to talk about in this post is what occurred at the after party hosted by Strands at Imbibe.
Introductions
At the Imbibe after party I got to talk to a ton of people that I’d only briefly met at IP3. I was twittering and Brightkiting my every step to be honest. I even got stopped and complimented by Gabriel Aldamiz-echevarria, VP of Communications for Strands. After my conversation with Gabe, I headed over to the table that Marshall, Frederic, and a host of others were gathered. I never made it to the table because I ran into Gaia Brown (brilliant woman!) who introduced me to Jake Kuramoto. Gaia started a conversation with someone else and while Jake and I were talking, Marshall came up and introduced me to Craig Schwartz of Toonlet. Do you see where I’m going with this? No? Keep reading then.
A Twitter Reaction
It came to a point where I was basically conversation hopping. This was cool because I got to meet a ton of new people and no one had any hard feelings about other people joining the conversation or changing the topic. However, at one point when I stopped talking and sat down, I thought, “Damn, this is Twitter IRL!”.
In turn, this made me wonder if people were taking on the social habits that you would normally exude on Twitter. Twitter is all about conversation hopping in order to make connections with a lot of people in a relatively short span of time. I’d never conversation hopped in such a manner before like I did at Imbibe, except on Twitter. I can’t stress enough how very Twitter-ish the entire thing felt except the conversations were longer but generally interrupted at any given time (Twitter anyone?). Most, if not all of these people are Twitter users. So there has to be at least some kind of connection there, right?
What Effects Does Twitter Have On You?
Is it possible that everyone at the Imbibe party was under some sort of Twitter spell or is this a natural Portland get-together reaction? Does Twitter have an effect on the way you converse at parties?
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I think twitter truly does have an influence on real life interactions. Before I knew the ways of Twitter, I was lost… but now, I am found :) It's a great way to start a real life conversation at meet-ups like this, assuming that other people in the crowd are on twitter as well. Deciding to be geeky for the night, I even had a shirt made with my twitter picture on the front (http://snurl.com/2o8hs), trying to link my twitter profile with my life's profile :)
Corvida, I think what you are describing is typical tech cocktail party behavior…massive creation/reinforcement of many to many connections…weak ties that can become the basis of stronger ties later. I think Twitter reinforces that. Twitter is basically one massive ly connected and personalized cocktail party. But the deeper relationships are built in other places. Through blogging, *maybe* FriendFeed, and definitely via IRL interactions!
Glad to meet you IRL. This is for sure a PDX thing (not exclusively); the get-togethers here often have spaces for Twitter handle on them.
Twitter brings us together and makes us a tight-knit community, one that's always looking to add new blood (cough).
IMHO Twitter adds an icebreaker element to a cocktail party conversation. You get that “oh, it's you” moment where you go from strangers to pals in a second.
Yes, it most certainly does.
I couldn’t agree more with you, and think that this is partly due to the relatively small size of Portland’s tech community.
When you have a lot of the same people showing up to the same events—averaging about once every week or two—connections are reinforced and new ones are quickly made.
Hey – it wasn't until after Marshall introduced me to you, in the lobby of the Bagdad, that it dawned on me that I'd read your tweets a couple of times. I got so involved in conversation with Marshall's partner, that I never got to talk to you.
Though I've lived in PDX most of my life, this is the way I've always experienced “parties.” In fact, the quote from my in The Oregonian mentions how Twitter is like walking through the convention hall at a large conference. But I like your term – “conversation hopping.” That works.
I'm glad you enjoyed your visit in Portland – we hope to see you here again sometime!
PS: After reading this post (recommended by @turoczy), I kept reading more and more. You're a good writer!
Thanks for the compliment Gary.
I've honestly never experienced this at “parties” or maybe I'm comparing things to clubs that I've been to. Even then we chit chat at clubs or parties at clubs, but I've never experienced things the way I did in Portland. It was pretty amazing though. :)
You definitely have a point there. Though, the rapid speed and which new connections are made far surpassed anything I've ever seen. The tech community in Portland has learned the art of making connections. Jedi masters!
That's pretty funny how Twitter can do that. You look at someone and have no clue who they are and they shout out there Twitter handle and it's almost as if you've been bffs your entire life lol
Great comment Elliott. This is why I need you to stop by more. I love hearing your thoughts!
Heh, like meeting a blogger you read, except for everyone.
You asked if this happens all the time in Portland, and the answer is yes, yes it does. :-)
Oops. Duplicate comment. I'll use this one to say that I first heard of you through Twitter, when you said you were flying in for Ignite Portland 3. And now I “know” you. So there's your proof! :-)
It's kind of addictive. People are now asking for Twitter IDs rather than phone numbers.
It affected my iPhone battery life! Hehe… i am tweeting almost every 30 mins with my iPhone.
I must agree with it but asking for Twitter IDs are a little far fetch. Good joke though. ;-)
It would be a matter of time when parents need to find their kids via Twitter.
Sometimes it's a little scary when people are too wired up. We tend to lose our footing on the ground.
Twitter have made me change my way into looking at the corner of my Firefox browser for updates :D
(using TwitterFox)
I use twitter and it help me to communication with my friends
I use twitter and it help me to communication with my friends
I use twitter and it help me to communication with my friends