Are you addicted to the Twitter?

So are you addicted to Twitter?

Do you check and post to Twitter:

At events and conferences?

During meetings?

When you get into work you check the Twitter before checking your e-mail?

At home whilst cooking?

When sitting on the sofa when watching TV?

In bed before you go to sleep?

It’s the first thing you look at when you wake up?

Do you decide on where to have coffee based on the free wifi so you can check the Twitter?

When you bought a new phone, was the fact that it could run a Twitter app one of the main reasons for purchase?

When handing over contact information do you say @user rather give you your email address?

Maybe a more important question is could you give up the Twitter?

Or do you want to leave a comment saying it not’s called the Twitter it’s just Twitter?

So could you stop using Twitter? Not for ever perhaps. Maybe just over the holiday period? Or the weekend?

Or is it not about stopping, but thinking about the importance of Twitter in terms of everything else.

Personally for me the Twitter is about the coffee. It’s the conversation you have with colleagues over coffee in the morning, it’s the conversation you have at a coffee break during a meeting or an event, it’s the conversation you have over coffee at a conference during the breaks. It is a conversation without the constraints of geography and in some ways time.

For me though it does not replace all those conversations, it adds to them, it enhances them, but in the main I still have those other conversations. I don’t use Twitter to avoid those or instead of them.

Of course lots of things are said during those face to face conversations, mundane things such as the quality of the coffee, talking about articles and programmes, people we’ve met, people we’ve seen, the quality of the presentations, keynotes and sessions.

There are also people we avoid during those conversations, those that only talk about themselves, those that only promote what they do, those that have opinions about everything: in other words those that don’t listen and talk all the time.

With conversations over coffee, one of the key features is that you don’t hear all the conversations, and you don’t necessarily hear the beginning or the end. You dip into conversations, you join in, add, converse and leave. Of course if you don’t join in that conversation, rarely will you be missed, people may talk about you, or things you do, but generally you won’t be missed and you probably won’t even be thought about.

Which brings us back to using the Twitter.

If you are start using Twitter instead of real conversations then you may want to think about how you are using the Twitter. At the end of the day the Twitter stream is not important. It doesn’t matter if you miss any of it, you don’t need to check it all the time.

If you feel you need to take a break from the Twitter then you probably do.

For me Twitter is an important tool that I find very useful, there is a great community on there, however I can say the same about casual conversations over coffee. However like any casual conversation it’s not important to hear the whole and every conversation. You dip in and you can dip out. When you go away to events or on leave you will miss conversations at work, but generally you don’t need to hear them, important stuff will get to you if required.

I know that if I don’t engage with Twitter that most people won’t notice and for me that doesn’t matter.

Oh and I promise not to say the Twitter anymore!

2 thoughts on “Are you addicted to the Twitter?”

  1. We’re using the Twitter in our LRC. The majority of our followers are our students, and within that wider group we’ve definitely built up a little community. We run the occasional competition, students take part, generally keep in touch and ask us the odd question. I think we really saw twitter as a promo tool at first, a way of getting our info over to students, but now I think the community aspect is even more important. I know if I need a student opinion there’s a little Twitter gang I can call on. They might not be representative of the whole Uni, but they are at least willing to talk and get involved. It’s been a good success without a huge time/staff/financial investment.

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