Intimidation

Ever since I finished student teaching, I have had some time on my hands. I have used that time to create and add to my Personal Learning Network (PLN). In hoping to add to my PLN, I joined Twitter. Over the past six months, I have heard a good deal about it and how useful/addicting it can be. I was initially skeptical because I thought that blogging was helpful, but didn't necessarily see the point of micro-blogging. I see that the power of Twitter, following other people and having others follow you, is essentially just like your own little PLN. Also knowing that a good amount of my students probably use it, I thought it would be helpful to be knowledgeable about this emerging way to connect with each other.

So I made up my mind that I was going to give Twitter a shot to see what is was all about. The signing up process was very quick and easy, but then came the hard part; the content. As I was considering joining Twitter, I also read up a lot on it, such as the do's and don'ts. One of the don'ts that stuck with me was to not just state what you are doing i.e. just finished dinner. I kept reading about making sure that you are providing value to the people who are following you, because who really cares that you are getting a cup of coffee. So after I started following the same authors of my blog roll, I now had to ensure that what I was posting was of value to these veteran Twitterers. I have a hard enough time coming up with ideas to blog about, let alone ideas to constantly post to Twitter. I know that I struggle as a writer getting the ideas and thoughts in my head onto paper, or the computer screen. I hope that one of the many benefits of blogging is to strengthen my writing ability, and I hope that Twitter does the same for me, albeit in a much shorter, to the point method.

As I have been using Twitter for a few days now, I have noticed a slight change in my behavior online. On my iGoogle page, I added a Twitter gadget to keep with my notworks tweets. Normally when I go to my iGoogle page, the first thing that I check was my Google Reader for any new blog posts. But suddenly, I am now scrolling down past my Reader box and going right to my Twitter box. The good news is that Twitter is living up to its billing as a tremendous place for resources. I currently follow about 20 people and I am having a hard time keeping up with it all. The good part is that a number of the people I follow are tweeting about links they find interesting. So I click on them and check them out. And then I read my Google reader. This is starting to take up a lot more of my time. In just a short time, I think that I am starting to suffer from some of the downsides to Twitter which is hyperconnectivity. Wes Fryer wrote an excellent piece about it the other day.

People on both the pro and con sides of hyperconnectivity say it will influence people’s health. While those who fear it say it will cause stress-related illnesses, those who welcome it say the flexibility it offers may improve mental health.

I’m with those who predict more health-related problems with hyperconnectivity than helps. Look how we’re struggling now to keep up with email, SMS messages, blog posts, and other news-related media streams? Discipline is hard. I think digital discipline is only going to get more challenging in the months and years ahead.

From page 132:

HYPERCONNECTIVITY WILL CREATE UNREALISTIC WORK EXPECTATIONS AND STRESS, AND INTRUDE ON LIVES - Many people see hyperconnectivy as a threat. Among the hundreds of elaborations provided by the respondents, only a few people perceived that blending work and personal time would tilt people’s lives toward more time for family, friends, and personal pursuits.

This finding has BIG implications for our need for both digital discipline and digital dialog.

I can't agree with this more and I believe that in addition to teaching our students how to connect with the world properly, we should also teach them how to disconnect with the world as well. The only good that came of this is that when I teach digital discipline going forward, I will have a real life story to go along with it.

I realize that I have only been using Twitter for just a few days now, and that I will start to get the hang of it and will stop being so intimidated.