This week for ALES 204, we had a choice as to what our blog post topic was. After spending hours thinking of a nutritionally relevant topic, I realized that I should write on something we use everyday in class that I know a lot of students had a hard time adapting to - Twitter! I will never forget chatting with my classmates in lecture and labs about how ridiculous it was that we had to join Twitter. We didn't want to know what everyone in the class was doing every second and we definitely found it uncomfortable connecting with our professor in such a casual, non-professional way. I will admit that I may have been one of the biggest former anti-Twitter advocates. However, after joining it for the class, I came to realize that I didn't have to use Twitter as a way of sharing mundane activities but instead as a way of gathering information, learning new things relevant to my program and sharing my own interests with others. Although I have lightened up to the idea of Twitter, I still have my reservations. There are many benefits and also many downfalls with Twitter that I would like to share with you all.
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A main use of Twitter has definitely been companies promoting their products and celebrities promoting themselves. As shown by this graph, the largest group of Twitter users both in November 2010 and May 2011 have been 18-35 years of age. As of March 2011, Twitter had 175 million registered users. You can't pay for better advertising than that! Twitter has become an essential way to market both products and people because real-time updates and advertisements can be posted for millions to see. Let's take, for example, the famous singer/songwriter Adele. Her Twitter page has approximately 4.5 million followers. If she wants to let everyone know that she has a brand new album coming out she simply types less than 140 characters into a box and in seconds 4.5 million users now know about her new album. Not only is Twitter a great way to market products and celebrities, but it's also a great way to receive lots of information about specific things you're interested in. When I first joined Twitter, I knew I would be using it as an educational tool more than anything so I followed numerous nutritionists, science bloggers and students who are also interested in Nutrition. This allowed me to receive recent articles and opinions regarding things I was actually interested in. I found Twitter to be a wonderful way to gather together many different opinions and scientific articles which a simple Google search just can't do.
It may seem like I've completely jumped on the Twitter bandwagon but don't be so hasty! I definitely do have my concerns surrounding Twitter. Social media as a whole has taken away the concepts of privacy and conversation and Twitter may be the most guilty culprit. It has become a platform for people around the world to share private details about themselves (both intimate and mundane) and it definitely has catered to the laziness of our society. Instead of having a nice personal conversation with someone, you just click a button and everyone who is following you know how you're feeling or what you're doing. Instead of calling up a friend and talking for twenty minutes, you just type 140 characters and that's enough. The concept of conversation is slowly fading away and I don't want to see it go. I want to talk to my friend about how she's feeling, not read it online along with hundreds of her followers. I want to have a lengthy conversation about something meaningful, not 140 characters of misspelled words ending with "LOL". This brings me to another point regarding the English language and Twitter; it's hacking away at grammar and spelling! Even I have been guilty of throwing a "u" instead of "you" into a tweet because it's hard to fit a thought into 140 characters. Well-written, thoughtful things can definitely be found on the internet and can be linked to through Twitter, however I rarely come across a well-written tweet itself. However, before I come across as cynical (too late?) I was reading some fellow classmates blogs and I think that Cassandra makes a good point in her blog. She mentions that shorthand is useful in some situations such as note-taking. Our generation as become so accustomed to the texting and online shorthand that it's second nature to us and we can use it to be more efficient. I agree with Cassandra in that shorthand doesn't have to be something that we fear. It can be beneficial and I know that I use it lots when taking notes in class. However, I think a social media site catered towards short, choppy thoughts and misspelled words is taking away from well-written thoughts on blogs or in newspapers.
Although I was extremely skeptical of joining Twitter at first, I have discovered how useful it can be and I enjoy using it daily to find information and share information of my own. I also have realized that the concerns I have with Twitter are not things that I have to deal with in ALES 204. This class uses Twitter to find relevant scientific information and to share it with one an other. I came across this article that talks about how College students can use Twitter to their advantage. It covers the etiquette of an appropriate Twitter account and I think that all University Twitter users should read it and learn how to be professional and appropriate while using social media.
Photo Reference:
1.Twitter User Demographic Chart [Digital Image]. 2011. Retrieved on March 1, 2012, from http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2011/06/pew-study-shows-who-uses-twitter.html
This is a fantastic blog post which outlines both the negatives and positives of Twitter. While reading through your blog i had to comment because i felt the exact same way as you when i found out that we would have to join Twitter for class. I felt that Twitter was ridiculous and to some extent just another way for individuals to complain about their life but was somewhat surprised to find out that Twitter can be used to find useful and relevant information. Your bring up a great point about how celebrities can use Twitter for advertising and how in a matter of seconds, millions of individuals can see what that celebrity is saying. I had not thought of Twitter as having the power to altert millions of individuals around the world, simultaneously, to information in just a click of a button. I agree with your comment about how Twitter forces an individual to divert from proper english because lots of Twitter posts that i have read often do contain "u" instead of "you" simply to save space. You make great points in your blog about the positives and negatives of using Twitter which made your blog a great read!
ReplyDeleteI will admit that I was also very skeptical of Twitter when I found that I had to make an account for ALES 204! I had always avoided getting an account because I knew that it would probably be time consuming and something that would distract me from school (like facebook, tumblr, pinterest etc). What I didn't realize was the endless opportunities that come from Twitter beyond the "I just fed my cat" updates. It is so neat to follow a professional in your field of study, or a company that you dream of working for only to have them personally tweet you or follow you back. I have had companies tweet me to ask how my experience using their services was (Moksha Yoga Edmonton) and was able to contact the design team at Hunter Boots to tell them a color I wanted. The possibilities are never ending with Twitter, although I agree with you that I hate the 140 character limit and sending a "u" or any other short hand drives me crazy!
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ReplyDeleteI think this is a great post. You pointed out both positive and negative sides of twitter. I like your point of how twitter with the limitation of 140 characters affects the accuracy of grammar and spelling. I sometimes have this problem. In order to shorten my words, I omit punctuations and use shorthands. It can be an argument that overuse of shorthands and inaccurate grammar in life decrease English skills. I also like your point that twitter can be a good tool to gather scientific or professional information. I did not use twitter before I took ALES204 because I think twitter promotes me procrastinating online and it only has meaningless information such as introduction of breakfast ingredients from your friends. During this class, I have learnt that twitter is a good communication tools to exchange scientific ideas for researchers and a good resources to get to know what is happening in your professional career. I disagree that "social media taking away communication with friends". I think friends should have more things to say than 140. Sometimes, posting on twitter of a short summary about your feeling promotes the interests of talking some topics among friends. They might call you and ask you more about the things behind that topic.
ReplyDeleteHey! I loved your addition of the graph to show how much Twitter use has increase in the past two years. I was actually shocked to see that ages 65+ even started using Twitter at all.
ReplyDeleteUsing Adele as an example of the power of Twitter was a great choice. How many other ways can you send out a message (or a concert announcement perhaps) to 4.5 million people with the click of a button? Even better, the millions of people who took the time to "follow" Adele obviously care about what she is going to tweet, and therefore she can advertise, connect, and expand her fan base with barely any effort. It's a bit scary to think about.