Twitter

I must admit that I set up an account on Twitter rather reluctantly.  Despite having had no experience with it, I just did not see the point.  I already felt inundated by people’s status updates on Facebook, I was just not into delving into a technology that only seemed to do that.  In the first few days I had hardly anyone to follow and no real purpose for following them, I was not seeing the point at all.  I also could find nothing to tweet about.  I sat in front on my computer screen and drew blanks; there was nothing I felt I wanted to share with the world.  I could not think of anything to write that I thought other people would care about. 

Over time, as I added people to my list to follow I did find that there were some tweets that did interest me.  So far, in my limited experience with Twitter the only time that I really felt that it was really useful was during the World Ringette Championships (WRC).  I played ringette all my life, in fact my Aunt and Uncle met coaching my team when I was 12 years old.  They are both still involved in coaching; my Aunt was an Assistant Coach with Team Canada at this year’s WRC in Finland.  As a result of both my personal interest in the sport and a personal connection to the team, I wanted to follow their progress in Finland.  During the team’s stay in Finland, there was a team attaché who updated the team’s experience in Finland.  I found that I was constantly checking to see if there were new updates.  During game times, I was attached to my iPhone to check for score updates.   I really enjoyed knowing what was going on in real-time.  I was also finally prompted to post a few tweets – I wanted to show my support for Team Canada.

Now that the WRC is done, I have deleted the attaché from my account as her tweets now focus on more local ringette news that just does not interest me as much.  I have no personal connection to what she is tweeting about and as a result I found myself feeling irritated that her tweets were taking up space in my timeline.  I have also not posted any tweets since the WRC finished; I again have nothing to say.

I guess the lesson I have learned is that every technology has its place and its use.  For the most part Twitter does not fulfill a need in my life and therefore I am not attached to it.  However, the times that the need is there, as it was during the WRC, it can be a beneficial tool.