According to some people on Twitter, low-signal for me is different to low-signal for other people.I like notifications. On the NIGHT MOVES podcast the other day, Rich Stevens called notifications the signs of “ambient humanity.” I like the ripples of events and all that spooky action at a distance. But I’m guessing that the way I use the internet is becoming increasingly rare. Sean Bonner sent this link: “Does Twitter’s exec team even use Twitter?” Answer: no. It’s possible that all their usage is in DMs, which wouldn’t show. But do you know how bad the iPhone Twitter app is at notifying you of DMs?

News, social and personal notifications stitch together a picture of each day. Early Twitter worked for me a bit like the way mid-period AIM worked for others — I’d see people wake up and come online across timezones, bail out and go to bed across timezones, great rolling waves of activity. I kind of miss that. Soon, I’m sure, Twitter will be fully algorithmically managed, and any sense of the temporal will be removed from Twitter entirely.

What’s the word for broadcast-only services that don’t respect time or place or preference and mostly want to show you ads? “Television”? Or do I just mean “Television in the 1970s”?”

Reading: LANDMARKS, Robert Macfarlane: (UK) (US)