Social Media Challenge #1: Twitter

The first website I challenged myself to use last week is Twitter. Twitter lovers beware, I'm going to trash talk it for a few sentences.

Now, Twitter is my most scoffed at social media website. I have never liked the basic premise of it or how people seem to use it: to be whiny little babies. To me, it had always been a website used to be really egotistical about yourself, and let everyone constantly know what you're doing (I'm looking at you "I'm going to the bathroom" people). I created an account a few years ago, during what I call my "obsessed with FOB, MCR, PATD" phase to see what musicians were posting. If you don't know what those acronyms mean, then you probably weren't as obsessed with emo bands as I was in my teen years, pat yourself on the back. Even then, I still had a problem seeing the validity of this website.

Well, I officially take my statements back after only a week of using it on a regular basis. I still have some problems seeing how it can be useful personally, as I don't really like to post a tonne of random shit about my life. Alternatively, I can see it's use for networking (business), keeping up with people you admire (celebrities) or getting news in a speedy format.

I actually regularity check my Twitter feed now to keep myself updated on the people I follow. I use this handy feature Twitter added in 2009 called "lists" so that I don't overwhelm my self with information, as some of the people I follow tend to constantly update (I'm talking live tweeting of conferences and such). As of now I follow 60 people and have 8 lists: Actors/Actresses, Comedy, Fransaskois, Law, Libraries, Music, News and my private list called Friends.

For the moment what I find really interesting is my Law, Libraries and Music lists, as those are the people who seem to post the most often. I have three people in my Law list: two law librarians and one in legal instruction. My library list has Regina Public Library and Saskatoon Public Library who both utilize their Twitter in great ways. Finally, my music list has all those acronyms I mentioned earlier plus a few more recent Canadian ones.

Twitter is simple, easy-to-use, doesn't have a huge learning curve to it and is a quite enjoyable way of connecting with people. I still have things to discover as I really haven't explored that much into my interests or more into libraries, which I what I would really like to use Twitter for. If anyone is interested I'm @sroussellewis, not that I'm particularly witty or funny, but whatever.