I recently came across a couple of blog posts extolling why one might want to consider deleting one's Facebook and Twitter accounts. While I can totally see how these social media sites wouldn't be an effective use of time for some, I find them very useful.
First off, the internet in general is a major part of my life because I live in a country where apart from my husband and brother-in-law, I am only close to one other person who speaks my language. Honestly, without the internet it would have been much harder for me to survive in France, expecially those first few years when I was still learning the language. E-mail, yahoo messenger and scrapbooking message boards helped me feel a lot less lost and alone when I first moved over.
I welcomed the explosion of social media with open arms and jumped right on that band wagon too! I use both Twitter and Facebook for professional as well as personal reasons.
Both are a great way for me to promote what I am up to, as well as find out what other people in my field, or who have the same interests, are doing and reading. I can't begin to number how many awesome websites, programs, books, movies and music groups I have discovered thanks to the links that others share.
For me this is the power of Twitter. With only 140 characters to express yourself, you have to cut out a lot of the waffle and get your point across succintly. I consider Twitter a fantastic source of information. Yes, I do also chat with others, and have been building some relationships there, I love using it to find information or answers to burning questions.
In general, if you have a question about something seemingly random and send a tweet about it, you get a host of useful answers back. Love it! There was a point when I did find Twitter overwhelming, and with the time difference I have with most of the people I interact with there, I always felt like I was missing out, or had to go back and read all the tweets from the night before. But then I read this great post by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits, where he likened Twitter to being a river that you can dip into from time to time. It changed my entire perspective, and the way I went about using it. Oh and I swtiched to using TweetDeck, which is a desktop (or mobile) application for Twitter. That also made my Twitter time much more effective.
Facebook on the other hand is really more social for me. While I do also use it for networking and promotional purposes, what I love about it is that I can be in contact with people from all areas of my life on one single website! I don't need to go to a scrapbooking forum, an alumni board for my high school or university, or a number of different places to keep in touch.
With one log in I can be in touch with high school and university friends, former colleagues, other scrapbookers, my sister, cousins I haven't seen in donkey years, even ones I don't know well or have never met. I can check in quickly to see what's up in the life of someone I may not have the time to call. With the time difference this is extremely useful for me, and I dare say also for my friends and family on the other side of the Atlantic. If at 7:00 am one morning, my friend Mabel from Puerto Rico pops into my head, I can check her wall and leave her a note. I bet she prefers that to me waking her up at 1:00 a.m. EST!
Of course nothing can compare to a phone call or a visit, but this is a great way for me to keep in touch on a regular basis with the people that matter. What could be better than having an almost daily interaction with friends and family who are far away? My sister gets to see Kieran grow up through the photos that I post of him, and I get to commiserate with her on her crazy snowfalls in Massachusetts.When it's grey and cold outside I can look at the photos posted by my friends back home and be jealous, but yet cheered up. And birthdays! I love getting a ton of messages on my birthday, and enjoy posting greetings to everyone else.
However I don't play games or take quizzes. I should say I no longer play games or take quizzes (sorry to all the FarmVille et al folks!), and I don't send people hearts, flowers or drinks. I will however poke you back if you poke me!
So tell me, why do you use Twitter and Facebook?(or why DON'T you?)
