Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Giving Twitter another look


After a two and a half year hiatus, I have been back on Twitter for a week. I came back because a colleague has just begun to play with it and I thought I’d reconnect in support of her efforts.

As far as I can tell, not much has changed since I was last active. The folks I follow, true believers in education amongst a cacophony of self-promoters and wilderness criers are still tweeting out quotes, quips and links to articles they think will change the world.

My problem, and yes, it is my problem, with Twitter, the reason I left is this. I can’t build and maintain relationships in a sea of chaos. And for me communication should be about developing relationships, not spouting fascinating tidbits for whomever happens to be floating by. Have I grasped anything useful in the last week by watching the tweets scroll down the screen? Yes, I’ll admit to having learned a few things I may not have known without Twitter. Therefore, if I am to stay active on Twitter this time around, I’ll need to change my expectation of the medium. For it to work for me, I’ll need to treat it more as a river of information and opinion rather than a place to connect with friends.

I took a break from Twitter because I was more comfortable with my “friends” on Facebook, most of whom I know well in my day-to-day real life. But I’ll give Twitter a go for another week or two and see what happens.