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At the same time, though, I’ve seen powerful connections forged on social media, and real intellectual exchanges occur. Like most technologies, it can be used for good or evil. I’m cautiously optimistic that over time, we’ll become more sophisticated about using it to prevent violence, take down trolls, and burst filter bubbles.ĬN: This is a little like asking if a hammer is a force for good or not good! It all depends on what you’re doing with it.Ī lot of people use social media to harass others, and the nature of social media in general can bring out some of our worst human impulses. The health of your career shouldn’t depend on the quality of your tweets.ĪG: Yes. The less good part is when people have knee-jerk reactions to writers, or when they dismiss someone entirely because they make a misstep. I enjoy the literary conversations, the gossip, and the snark when some terrible article about writing or publishing starts making the rounds. I learn so much about forthcoming books via Twitter, in particular, and I appreciate the ability to share my own work. It is a fantastic medium for connecting to other writers, readers, interesting people. RG: Like most things, social media has both good and bad aspects but in terms of writing and publishing, there is far more good. The Publicists: Is social media a force for good or… not good? Up until then, people had been acting as if literary writers didn’t need to do this. The writing, as it were, was on the wall, or, online really. “I posted about it on my WordPress blog,” I said, “and then I shared it on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.” He nodded. “With online, we know what people read.” He then asked me what I’d done to promote the story in his magazine. “With the print issue, we don’t know what people read,” he said. But in 2009 I knew it would matter when I had an editor at a literary magazine tell me about my traffic on their site. At first, people told me I was wasting my time. For an introvert like me, it’s a great way to interact with others: I get to think about what I want to say before I send it out.ĪC: I am definitely on it for my own reasons. After that, I started tweeting about lit and culture, and found to my surprise that I really enjoyed it.