The first time I heard about Twitter, I couldn't quite understand why people would be interested in writing quick "microblogs" about their life, or read other people's for that matter. Facebook status' served that purpose well enough. Most of what I've heard about Twitter in the media is associated with celebrities tweeting things either about their newest splurge, a party they attended, or or information on their personal life. So, I never thought it was important for me to join.
However, since I've realized how much of a role social media and networking sites play in the new world of work and even social change (which is what I'm trying to further study during this time off), I decided to take the plunge and sign up!
And..... how is it? Is it as superficial and trivial as I had always suspected?
NOT AT ALL.
Of course, people will tweet random things like "I just ate a big bowl of strawberry yogurt" (I just made that one up as an example, but seriously, things like that are apparently important enough to be shared). But the people I have chosen to follow or even view are tweeting amazingly interesting links, facts, and reflections. It's an amazing way to also quickly view the web of connections, and who has influenced who. I've already learned about several websites, conferences, and people that fit into what I am pursuing in this project, and who knows if I would have ever found out about them without Twitter!
It's a little confusing to figure out the "rules" of the twitter game. There seems to be a whole sort of language used to write a tweet, where you are only allowed to use a certain amount of characters and therefore things need to be abbreviated (see the above picture for an example. I'm totally the bird on the far right). However, my dad, who also happens to be increasingly interested in this "new" world, bought a book on twitter that I am hoping to read to get the hang of things more easily.
One of the best things about Twitter is that it seems to be this filter of a lot of the junk that is on the internet, and the stuff that shows up is hand-picked and curated by people who I know or admire, and so of course I find it worthy to spend time on.
If you're interested in following me, please do!
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