How Twitter Seduces Us

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Twitter and The Art of Seduction

Se-duce: transitive verb: Late Latin seducere, from Latin, to lead away, from se- apart + ducere to lead

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it
~Oscar Wilde

Have you ever stayed awake at night wondering why you spend so much time twittering?

Have you ever vowed to tweet less, only to jump out of bed  the next morning and check your replies, direct messages and…admit it…your follow count?

When you realize how much time you’ve procrastinated, you promise to tweet less.  You withhold your tweets for a few hours…a day…maybe even a week.

But then it happens: the next morning, you yield to temptation and you’re back on Twitter again. 

What’s going on here?

The answer? Seduction. 

Twitter enacts the phases of seduction as outlined in Robert Greene’s book, The Art of Seduction. As Greene points out, we're seduced in four phases.

Here’s my take on how Twitter seduces us:

• Phase One: Separation: Stirring Interest and Desire

The tweets run through your mind like a ticker tape of the collective internet consciousness, “How to Make Internet Millions”, “How to Attract More Followers,” “Seven Secrets You Must Know About Twitter”  Or maybe it's just an interesting headline “What The Monkey Saw: AIG and The Bailout”, Or it might even be a profile picture from someone who responded your tweets.  Whatever. Someone…somewhere…somehow has attracted your interest.

• Phase Two: Lead Astray—Creating Pleasure and Confusion

You yield to temptation. You follow the clicks.  Yes, momentary pleasure as you skim the blog post, click through to that funny video clip or picture.  But then confusion may arise… How does this work? Why is this website asking for my twitter password? What does this twitterer really want from me?

• Phase Three: The Precipice—Deepening the Effect Through Extreme Measures

As Green writes, “The goal in this phase is to make everything deeper—the effect you have on their mind, feelings of love and attachment, tension within your victims. With your hooks deep into them, you can push them back and forth, between hope and despair, until they weaken and snap”

In this phase, you’ve already gone through your nocturnal deliberations….and yet you continue to return. This time you do more than just click through:  you subscribe to the newsletters, you give out your email address, and maybe…your Twitter password.  But the curiosity consumes you…”What if I don’t do this?”

• Phase Four: Moving In For The Kill

Greene: “First you worked on their mind—the mental seduction. Then you confused and stirred them up—the emotional seduction. Now the time has come for hand-to-hand combat—the physical seduction. At this point, your victims are weak and ripe with desire: by showing a little coldness or uninterest, you will spark panic—they will come after you with impatience and erotic energy.”

This phase of seduction occurs while you are away from Twitter. It refers to the actions you take away from the computer. Maybe you buy a book on internet marketing or copywritng. Maybe you sign up for a local class on blogging.  Or maybe you yield to the coup de grace of Twitter seduction: You attend the Tweetup.

And as you stand there, drink in hand, mingling with new faces at your next Tweetup , it dawns on you: You’re been seduced by Twitter.

 Let the games begin.