What Twitter Can Teach Us

Welcome to the Twitterverse!

According to an article titled "10 Great Uses for Twitter" by Daniel Nations (FOUND HERE: http://webtrends.about.com/od/twitter/a/why_twitter_uses_for_twitter.htm) we can accomplish great things via the rapid paced social media platform.


These include:

1. Microblogging
2. Quick Answers
3. Finding a job
4. Keeping up with the news
5. Arranging lunch with friends
6. Helpful outbursts, or in other words, screaming your rage

7. Keeping up with your team

8. Finding out what people think about the latest movies

9. Becoming involved with politics

... and last but not least

10. Fun and games

The Media Writing class I am taking at Marquette this semester required us to create twitter accounts (which I had already done previously), follow each other, and have tweeting interactions. We all used the same hash tag at the end of our tweets (#MWrSp141) so that we could easily identify the people from class and respond to them.

A number of the great uses for Twitter put forward by Daniel Nations applied to the tweets from our class. We talked about sports, movies, daily activities, happiness, frustration, and news (to name a few). Required to tweet a couple times a day, we really had to think about what we wanted to share and converse about. I noticed a lot of random thoughts. Twitter seems to be an extension of someones mind. There doesn't have to be a context or reason for a statement. I would say this is one of my favorite things about Twitter. You can say what you think whenever you want. Then it's out there. Everyone is connected and has the ability to interact and respond to each other.

Occasionally, opinions can become very aggressive. There is such a thing as "twitter fights". I didn't notice any hostility in our class tweets. Spending more time on Twitter over the past couple of weeks did, however, open my eyes to the craziness and intensity of opinions over the internet. I think some people become a more extreme version of themselves on the internet, if not an entirely different person. People can tweet whatever they want. Sometimes what they include in the 140 characters is a thought they would never dare to share in real life, as their "real" self.

The internet, and Twitter, is a sphere of competition for attention.
Why do we tweet? What is the purpose of Twitter?
We want people to know what we think because, to us, it's important. Everyone wants to appear to be more funny, intelligent, or insightful than the person next to them on their twitter feed. It's a never ending cycle of word wars. We want to be noticed and "heard" online. Other forms of social media, such as Facebook, instagram, and tumblr, have the same purpose; to share and be seen.

Real life interactions aren't enough anymore. Especially in our generation (the Millenials), we are increasingly expecting more from the internet and technology, and less from human interaction with each other.

My favorite aspect of twitter is being able to connect with professors, students, inventors, activists, writers, photographers, or anyone I'm interested in hearing from on a daily basis. Twitter is a great tool for networking and sharing ideas. Overall, I believe it is an interesting and growing platform for useful discussion and learning.

... and the occasional random, angry, or goofy tweet is always ok.