Twitter, Have I Dreamed

Maybe it's all the information and emails I'm getting about the ALA's Annual Conference coming up, but I've been having a lot of dreams lately about being in large rooms with lots of people talking about things. In my dreams, I walk up to each group and they're saying something interesting and I agree and move on to see what the next group is chatting about. 


via GIPHY

I also realized that that is exactly how I see Twitter. It is a platform I've avoided for a long time because I'd rather see pictures ala Instagram or Pinterest. Once I had a Twitter account about 10 years ago but it someone had created a fake account on behalf of a very large snake that had escaped in New York and the feed was all about it's adventures. Over the last few weeks though I've returned to Twitter (as LaurenHasBooks) and have been exploring and, though the user-friendliness of it isn't awesome, I am seeing where I've been missing out. 

This past Sunday night I participated in a Slow Chat hosted by Roman Nowak that was all about building hope in schools and answering questions about how we can make life beautiful. I really enjoyed it because it helped me to see positivity when sometimes all I can see is what is wrong with work. For example, as you can see below, the questions weren't difficult but they did help me skew my perspective especially on a Sunday night when you know you have work in the morning.

Screenshot by blog author

Screenshot by blog author

Twitter Pros and Cons

Pros: 

What I like about Twitter is being able to follow institutions that I'm interested in or offer interesting things to my profession such as the Smithsonian and the American Library Association. Due to the nature of character limitations, everything is right there and is a quick read. Like my conference analogy above, it's filled with interesting little snip-its of conversations happening all the time and mostly about things I enjoy because that's what I told Twitter I enjoy.

Cons: 

I signed up for a Twitter account a few weeks ago and then my phone broke and needed replacing. When I tried to login into Twitter it didn't recognize my number or my email and I had to create a new account. Just now, looking on Twitter from my laptop to get a link, it wouldn't sign me in saying I don't have an account again. Then it thought around for awhile until I eventually gave up and closed the window. 

Trying to find a slow chat was tricky because there's a LOT to sift through and I even had spreadsheets to use to find them. Typing in #slowchat was a mixed bag of returns that weren't all PG rated so that wasn't helpful. It seems like if you know what you're doing then you're going to be successful but if you don't then there's a lot of looking online and then returning to Twitter to find it there. 

Final Thoughts

I might keep it awhile and see if it ever feels natural for me to use it daily as a tool for learning because I enjoy the news blurb portions of it. But the overall flow and layout of it are cumbersome and not intuitive for me. Also, having to set up multiple accounts or being unable to access it across my devices make it inaccessible.


Comments

  1. NMZumpanoJune 14, 2023 at 5:17 AM

    Yes....there are "things" in place now that can make navigating Twitter difficult if you haven't been active on the platform. I understand completely about not knowing how to get started. I recently received a beta invitation to use Bluesky and much as you described when you are starting from scratch it can be quite overwhelming- and I'm in tech!

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