Teens and Twitter
While implementing Twitter in my classroom I have been doing a lot of research about the topic. I ran across a good article today about teens and Twitter. The basic premise is that teens aren’t using Twitter yet because they are using Facebook to accomplish most of the other purposes of Twitter. When I even mentioned Twitter in class the kids didn’t get the point of it and they thought it was “creepy” to follow someone (as this post also illustrates) but it no different than reading your friends’ status updates. The article states that one of the biggest uses of Twitter is marketing (or self promotion) and most teens don’t need to do that yet.
I will go one step further and say a lot of the adult users of Twitter are people who don’t have Facebook pages and if they did they would probably use Twitter a lot less. Also, I think teens don’t use Twitter as much because cell phones are treated like a cancer in high schools. If we tried to embrace this technology rather than shun it, we might fine that we can make good things happen.
That begs the question, why do I use Twitter.
I started using Twitter just because I wanted to see what it was all about. I think social networking it great, I recently read a nice blog post about how it can build good community efforts, and I think social networking on-line has improved my off-line relationship. Specifically with my students and in other areas of my life too.
I started using Twitter at about the same time I started using Facebook mobile to read status updates and to update my own. (I love status updates because I love to know what people are doing, I don’t know why, I just like the information of what is happening — It can lead to good conversations later on.) So, at the time I started using Twitter I didn’t really see the need.
Then I discovered that I could link Twitter and Facebook. Not only did this give me a good use of Twitter, but it also allowed to me save a text message because Facebook sends you an annoying verification text when you update your status. Once I made that transition I started to use Twitter a little more, but didn’t see the greater purpose.
I went to the Illinois Computer Educators conference recently and everyone there was Twitter this and Twitter that and one of hot applications there was Tweetdeck. I downloaded this and my whole vision of Twitter changed. Now I could have several different Twitter searches open at once and also see the hot or trending topics at a given moment in time. This allowed to truly get a feel for the pulse of the Internet.
Now, I have started to use the Selective Twitter Status on Facebook so I can post tweets that aren’t always status updates. This means I can interact in Twitter a lot more frequently and I can use it post links to interesting articles to my Twitter followers (who mostly my Facebook friends too, but not all) without having them in my status updates. This is really going to enhance my use of both tools.
I don’t know exactly where this whole social networking world is headed, but I am excited!
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Tags: Education, Facebook, ICE09, Internet, twitter
