In my meager social media experience, I have noticed that, for the most part, displaying one's life publicly is part of the sacrifice that one makes to get a glimpse into the lives of others. Generally speaking, I post a status on facebook and it stays up there for three or four days. I post a picture album and my friends go through it and "like" all of the pictures that have my face angled properly, or a funny look, or an interesting picture of scenery. Either way, nothing is kept a secret from the world anymore. In a society where reality tv reigns supreme, the generation behind me is growing up with a sense that there is nothing off limits, and to an extent, maybe this is true.
This week I was challenged to create a Twitter account and follow my classmates, as well as various organizations in the media, all while "tweeting" my activities and thoughts throughout the day. The first few posts on my part were a bit generic, stating that it was my first tweet and such. I grew into posting song lyrics by the third post. I found that Twitter is, while relatively easy to navigate, quite difficult to follow in terms of my friends' tweets. The organizations (especially those news and politically related) cluttered up my feed, and I found myself constantly presented with very short lines of text followed by a link to get the "entire story." I found this frustrating, as most posts were, in general, trying to get me to vote for something, or go to another web page, or "care" about their organization. I did, however, gain access to some pretty interesting internship opportunities, a few of which I plan on applying for.
The concept of Twitter is to manage simple thoughts and ideas; to paraphrase and generalize basic ideas and statements of individuals as they see the world, as well as to perpetuate and navigate the realm of "headlining." I personally feel that my relationship with Twitter is obsolete if I do not forward a link onto my profile. In terms of interpersonal connections, twitter doesn't add up. It does, however, provide an extremely useful tool for networking for businesses and A business that can appeal to me on a networking site has a better chance of reaching me than through another type of advertisement. And unlike facebook, Twitter is more interactive, because there is a social media coordinator/celebrity/real person on the other side of the "tweet," which is interesting. It is going to take some time for me to really iron out all of the "kinks" of tweeting, but I will keep my account, and I will keep on fluttering, because as a Strategic Communication, it is my job to know what is going on in the PR, marketing, networking and communication venues of society and business.
But for all intensive purposes, and for the sanity of my brain....
I think I'm pretty much sticking to facebook.
-Alyssa
