ChasNote

In his piece What Phone Calls Taught Me about Twitter, my colleague Greg Hay starts with the fact that big-city dwellers communicate more than small-city dwellers, and ends up with a theory that the dense crowding of voices on Twitter motivates us all to engage with Twitter at greater volumes and intensity than other social networks.

MIT professor Carlo Ratti studied the volume of telephone communication by city and determined that it increases with population density at an exponential multiple of 1.5. For example, New Yorkers talk on the phone 30 times more than residents of Syracuse.

Greg suggests that the competition for space and attention in dense geographies triggers a Darwinian response:

“people begin to move and interact faster at a subconscious level because survival and competitive instincts kick in. Therefore in New York, we feel compelled to chat on the phone more and walk faster because instinctually there are so many more of us competing for space and mindshare among our peers that the fear of losing drives us to use the phone more and briskly pass tourists on the sidewalk.”

Which brings us to Twitter.

“Think about it. What did we do on MySpace? I looked at your page, turned off the dumb song you picked and maybe checked out your pictures, but I was alone on the page. With Facebook I could chat with friends, tag the same pictures and the Feed of news kept reminding me that I was not on Facebook alone, so that same instinct that tells me to walk fast, also told me to update my status and make witty comments. I was competing for mindshare among my friends. Now with Twitter, the entire experience is a New York City sidewalk, I’m never alone at any stage of the experience.”

It turns out urbanites are more likely to use Twitter than the rest of the population. Though I wonder how Oprah and Aston Kutcher will affect Twitter’s demographics. If the conversational nature of Twitter — that New York City sidewalk on which we’re all bustling and elbowing — becomes more of a broadcast, a show that we’re watching in 140-character sound bites, will we lose our motivation to participate? Will we start to feel all alone again?