Twitter isn’t just the hippest new way to get gossip, headlines, and nosy details of your friends’ lives. It’s helping people whine, embarrass themselves, find taco trucks and counter the Taliban like never before.
Now, researcher Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire is using Twitter to investigate the not-so-scientific world of psychics. Specifically, he’s looking to learn more about the ability to psychically identify geographic locations, a so-called psychic power that actually has a name: remote viewing. Wiseman will think of a place, and research subjects will “tweet” where they perceive the location to be. He predicts that up to 10,000 people will participate, and all locations Wiseman chooses will be in the U.K. (which, uh, narrows the guesses down pretty considerably).
Some speculate whether Twitter and other digital media are making us dumber, or wasting valuable time with stunts like this. So is the psychic study a waste of time and resources? Or a positively Twitterific, if you will, use of the technology? While it may not be in furtherance of a monumental scientific discovery this time, Twitter, and other 2.0 technologies, are, in a way, doing exactly what they’re intended to do: be the latest in a line of tools that let human beings be, er, twits.
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Image: Courtesy of Twitter
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:19 am
A waste of time and resources, only insofar as it won’t convince anyone of anything.
But as a feedback tool in general, it’s useful. Most people won’t participate in telephone surveys, but they’ll take a few minutes to answer a poll or voice an opinion. Of course, when you leave it open to anyone, you have no idea how your sample set is being skewed (as PZ’s minions love to illustrate).
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:03 pm
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