Twitter: Pros and Cons

Let me just start by saying that I personally use Twitter, and my username is @hayden_julius if anyone wishes to follow me.

Twitter is one of those social networking sites that is just so mindblowingly simple that it can be used in so many different ways.  Essentially, Twitter was created as a way to keep tabs on people by receiving their 140-characters-or-less "tweets", whether or not online or mobile.  For me, Twitter does just that: it allows me to send out quick thoughts or jokes or something interesting for others to read.  I like to think of myself as a conduit of entertainment as opposed to another user: I share the most incredible puns and jokes ya 'dun ever seen, and I think I've counted nine retweets in one day.  I guess I'm just that cool.

Likewise, I don't send out tweets on pointless things.  I don't talk about my life of adequate normalcy because I don't like getting tweets of other people's simple existence.  I just don't care enough to go through the effort of opening my phone to hear about things that aren't relevant.  That being said, I do like to feel out where my followers and people I follow are doing.  I like hearing gossip or about events I couldn't go to; I like hearing all the interesting things people have to say without going through the social convention of conversation.  That doesn't mean Twitter replaces the importance of real-life conversation, but I enjoy it for the breadth of wisdom each of these tweets might have. 

Another desperately important aspect of Twitter's success is the access users have to celebrities they choose to follow.  For instance, I follow Conan O'Brien, Steve Martin, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson.  Respectively, those people are a talk show host, an actor/bluegrass extraordinaire, and an astrophysicist.  I follow them because I think their tweets are for my own entertainment and especially Dr. Tyson, whose tweets (when not cheap astro-poetry) contain really cool information about the biggest topics in science today.

Educationally, Twitter has a wide range of uses in the classroom; however, I don't see myself using it, purely because I already have too much fun with its social aspects.  I don't wanna hear about my followers crunk parties because it's not professional for a teacher to have social ties with students.  Perhaps programs like Celly and blogspot would be more appropriate to have the extra line of communication to my students, as opposed to this Twitter medium where I let loose and go crazy. 

In summary, Twitter is bomb-diggity, but I cannot bring myself to integrate it into a classroom.  And, I will leave this post with a joke I tweeted that got retweeted four times:

"Why don't we take ALL the leftover crumbs from Nature Valley granola bars and end world hunger?"