I found a wistful story in the New York Times Magazine about a man who ultimately felt compelled to withdraw from Twitter. The writer notes that he accumulated some 25,000 followers, but is there any way to verify the veracity of such a number? And from his description, his tweets were like drive-bys. Did he share useful information? Did he attempt to build something of a community through retweeting, conversations, support others he met and sustain online friendships offline?
I can't tell, because the fellow evidently deleted his account.
Certainly I identify with his one-time obsession.
As in real life, ongoing Twitter engagement takes time, away from other activities. Reading through my follow list I saw people I was interested in enough to include, but gradually it becomes overwhelming, to read all the tweets, never mind the blog posts. And I want to know. At some point, though, I had to stop, or level off. I wasn't getting my work done. Neglected analog relationships and obligations. Slowly trying to reconnect.
Because so many in the Twitterverse, more than I can name or recall, sustained me through particularly difficult times with the messages and examples that I needed to read and hear and read and hear again. This morning there was a thread called #spiritchat, in which I read: "Grateful that the internet brought twitter so that I may share and learn from other spirits across the world." Agreed.
I enjoy Twitter. I have "abused" it, ie, gotten sucked in and let it distract me from other things. But when I use it as a tool well, I strengthen relationships with amazing people I wouldn't otherwise have contact with.
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing, Laura. I agree with you, have made so many amazing connections myself through Twitter that would have been unlikely. If you use it as you are using your wonderful blog you are using it extremely well. I loved your video post about telling stories in job interview situations.
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