To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question. As a stickler for the written word and old fashioned journalism, I’ve been extremely hesitant to create a Twitter account, feeling that if I do, I’m giving into the enemy: social media. For traditional newshounds like myself, social media is the archenemy of journalism. It threatens the integrity of our work and our authority to report the news with legitimacy. Yet in light of Iran’s Twitter Revolution and the explosion of new users around the world, I figured Twitter deserved a thorough analysis before I dismissed it for good. Maybe this will help you decide if your Blackberry could use another application — Twitterberry — or if your e-mail inbox can afford yet another means of congestion.

Some issues to think about:

Issue #1: Twitter vs. Facebook. What can Twitter offer that Facebook doesn’t already? From a non-tweeter’s perspective, a tweet seems to be essentially the same thing as a Facebook status. The main difference is that while it’s generally acceptable to tweet your thoughts and whereabouts all day long, you cannot (or should not) do so through your Facebook status. If you are one of those Facebookers who updates their status every five minutes, please stop and join the Twitter train, for the sake of my Newsfeed.

Issue #2: Friends vs. Followers. Though meeting someone in real-life and acknowledging that you are already Facebook friends is most definitely taboo, admitting that you are “following” someone on Twitter is that much creepier. Yet the creeper connotation isn’t always applicable. These days, you can follow literally anyone and anything on Twitter: Oprah, Lady Gaga, Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian, Obama, and even Cornell University. Though all these people have Facebooks as well, the ability to tweet about their personal lives, make announcements or express their opinion on any given issue enables them to easily connect with their respective audience in a tangible way at any given time. This radically changes the celebrity-fan, politician-voter, administrator-student dynamic, seemingly espousing a more equal-footed relationship.

Issue #3: Is Twitter the next cell phone? If at the end of my analysis, I adamantly refuse to get a Twitter account, will I inevitably be out-of-the-loop as if I still relied on a land line? Given the fact that essentially all politicians, many Cornell administrators and professors, and any business that even attempts to be youth-friendly uses Twitter, will I be technologically off the grid, muted by my own pigheaded mentality because I neglect to tweet?

Evidence: I didn’t realize how seriously technologically behind I was until I was asked about my personal experiences with social media while applying for a summer internship last spring. When I replied with a hesitant, “Umm, I have a Facebook?”, my potential employer responded with a polite, “Oh ...,” as if she were expecting me to tell her about my latest tweet. Since when did one’s Twitter account become a line on one’s resume, listed right underneath Cornell University?

Issue #4: Having distinguished between a tweet and a Facebook status, I’m still not convinced that there is any value to a 140-character-or-less post about “whatever’s on my mind.” Is Twitter just a slightly more intellectualized version of Texts From Last Night (TFLN) or FMyLife (FML)? To illustrate this point, I refer to the multiple websites devoted purely to recognizing the most popular tweets and twitterati (plural of twitter-er?). Much like the weekly top-rated TFLNs and FMLs, the best tweets typically consist of the most outrageous, embarrassing and obscene 140-character combination imaginable. Thus, is Twitter simply reinventing the wheel, providing those of us locked up in Uris Library at 3 a.m. yet another means of laugh-out-loud procrastination, or does it have something more substantial to offer?

Answer to #2: Yes! Despite my extensive mockery of Twitter and its implicit endorsement of narcissistic, self-absorbed and procrastinating young people, I will admit that when used correctly, there is some legitimate value to Twitter. The most obvious example of this is the role Twitter played in the aftermath of Iran’s most recent presidential election.

With the expulsion of foreign journalists from Iran amidst post-election protests and violence, Twitter — amongst other social-media tools such as Facebook, YouTube and Flickr — served as a fundamental link between the Iranian people and the outside world, sharing unforgettable images like the citizen death of Neda Agha-Soltan. Even more importantly, though, Twitter functioned as a key rallying device to connect Iranians within Iran, allowing them to organize protests, report human rights violations and take a united stance in support of free and fair elections. Given blocked access to most foreign news websites and minimal text messaging capabilities, Twitter became one of the primary means of communication in Iran. Twitter proved to be so effective that the U.S. State Department even asked Twitter to reschedule their planned online maintenance so that Iranians could continue to tweet about happenings on the ground.

Issue #5: Everyone in Tehran’s doing it (so we should too). This argument I don’t buy. Though Twitter clearly had an impact in Iran, how does that have anything to do with Cornell students tweeting about their latest bagel concoction at CTB or having beer spilled on them at Johnny O’s? The answer is, it doesn’t. The U.S. Bill of Rights guarantees our right to freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly — liberties that the Iranian people, unfortunately, do not have. This is not to say that just because we live in an open society, we shouldn’t tweet; rather, drawing a parallel between our daily struggles here (read: the line at CTB) and the injustices in Iran seems unfounded.

What we can take from Iran’s Twitter Revolution is what Prof. Fahmy, Near Eastern Studies, referred to during last week’s Cornell International Affairs Review panel, as the creation of citizen journalists. Twitter’s mantra is, “Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.” Thus in effect, Twitter provides an avenue for anyone, anywhere to break a story and share it with the world at anytime. In this regard, Twitter bypasses all preexisting journalism rules of conduct. There are no checks in the system; no editors and no means of authentication. Yet while this democratization of journalism maximizes freedom of the press, it also threatens the legitimacy of media as a whole. If anyone can report a news story, what makes The New York Times anymore trustworthy than an avid tweeter?

This is where a key distinction must be made: Twitter, and other social-media services alike, can supplement journalism as a media tool but not a replacement. While Twitter may provide the means to break a story, it fails to adequately convey all the necessary nuances of that story. But that’s OK; in fact, that’s its purpose — creating opportunities for the press to cover stories and expanding the means of sharing those stories.

Given my adherence to journalism and its inevitable adaptations, I’ve decided to rejoin civilization and reluctantly tweet like the rest of us. But at the end of the day, you will still find me reading an old fashioned newspaper.

Carolyn Witte is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. She may be reached at cwitte@cornellsun.com. Wit’s End appears alternate Wednesdays this semester.