You Need to Stop Live-Tweeting TV

You'll spoil it for others—and yourself: Daniel Carlson
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 25, 2012 1:52 PM CDT
You Need to Stop Live-Tweeting TV
Just hang on until the credits roll, please.   (Flickr)

If you've ever had a television show spoiled by live-tweeters, you'll probably appreciate Daniel Carlson's directive: "Step away from the keyboard," he begs viewers, because "live-tweeting ruins everything." Yes, he's annoyed at plot spoilers—but more importantly, he points out on Pajiba, tweeting while watching the show "negatively affects the way you experience the story." He doesn't even check Twitter while watching Breaking Bad, he points out—not to avoid spoilers, but simply because he's engrossed in the show.

"For those 60 minutes, I want to see what happens to Walter White. I don’t want to pause the action to repeat a canny one-liner, and I sure don’t want to miss a moment of emotional scene-setting because I was fixing a typo in my #BetterCallSaul hashtag," he writes. Social media is great for bringing people together, but using Twitter to instantly rehash the plot of TV shows "means missing the point of those shows entirely," Carlson writes. "To hover over your computer’s keyboard or phone’s glossy screen is to miss out on the moment of connection and possibility that makes art worth experiencing." Click for his full column. (More Twitter stories.)

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