Recently I’ve begun paring back on my usage of Facebook in favor of Twitter. It’s not that I don’t find any value in Facebook - to the contrary, Facebook feels more like dinner with friends - it’s that sometimes I just want a cup of coffee with someone new. Enter Twitter.
Many of my real-world friends think Twitter is inane, and I certainly know of a few people who legitimize the negative stereotypes. So, I run all tweets through a sort of mental gauntlet to filter any that would qualify, eliminating the mundane and focusing on the material - both in what I say and who I follow.
What I am finding is that I spend less time filtering what I am saying on Twitter, and significantly more time reconstructing how I live my life - professionally and personally - so that my tweets are organically more useful. I am more active in volunteer work, spend more time listening to other people, and generally try to be more helpful. The medium rewards knee-jerk goodness, and rejects overt strategy and manipulation. Authenticity and transparency are easy to judge on Twitter.
I wonder if social media, lampooned for being the playground of the self-aggrandizing, isn’t really quite the opposite - a place where people go to become better people.
james brickle @ 4:17 am
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james brickle @ 4:20 am
Don’t know about that avatar you gave me… but here here new friend.