I am not a Twitter fan and I thought it was a good opportunity to try it out as part of this course. The thing about tweeting is that there is a word limit on what you can tweet and it has to be succinct and straight to the point, where people can understand the message that you are trying to convey. Unlike Facebook, where we can actually write as much as we want, and be really descriptive and clear on what we want to convey to the readers.
There are definitely pros and cons with the word limit. The good thing is that the tweets are short and sweet, just enough words for people to understand what you are trying to say. Instead of reading through paragraphs after paragraphs of words on Facebook for example, with the tweets, we can basically get a lot more information from various sources and it save us a lot of time. I am a very expressive person in an online environment, where I usually express myself more in words than in face-to-face speeches. Based on this, I think Twitter appeals more to people who are less expressive and more direct kind of a personality. I could be wrong but personally, I don't think I will use it at all. Yesterday night, I was playing with the emoji coding application that Dr Dennen has tweeted on, I created a message that was apparently too long that it doesn't allow me to share on Twitter. So I went back to my message to shorten it a few times just so that it can be shared on Twitter. I googled a little bit on the pros and cons of using Twitter, specifically on the 140 characters limit. It was mentioned that Twitter is more of a broadcasting medium (http://www.adweek.com/fishbowlny/pros-and-cons-of-twitters-140-character-limit-part-1/246479) and that it is not really suitable for conversational type of activities, which I agree to a great extend. We can still engage in conversations but the problem would be that the messages have to be succinct and short.
I like the "moments" tab where the latest news or things happening around the world are readily available to me. I don't have to go on to any news websites to find out what is happening around me. It feels like it is a one stop all encompassing social media platform where I can share information about myself, read the news, share any kind of information and private message people. It is also a very professional type of platform i.e. no games, unlike Facebook, there are many things you can do on Facebook, there are a lot more features as compared to Twitter.
These are just my very first impression on Twitter and my personal experience with using it! I am still exploring it and try to play around with the features to see how everything goes!
Have fun tweeting!!
I was thinking the same thing about the character limit when I tweeted something yesterday. I felt like I had a lot more to say but had to shorten it because of the character limit. However, after I shortened what I wanted to say, I actually thought it communicated the information more clearly. I think it makes you think about the more important information you want to say because you may not be able to put everything you wanted to in the tweet. I agree with you that Twitter and Facebook both have their place. They have different things they are used for and people get different things out of using them.
ReplyDeleteHey Ashley! I totally agree with you! As I was tweeting, I began to ask myself, "what is it that I want to convey to everyone on Twitter?", "How can I make it short yet to the point but sufficient enough for people to understand my points?". I think it is a good practice for me given that in reality, especially in a work place, we are too busy with a lot stuff and information that are short and clear, helps to reduce extraneous load on our brain!
ReplyDeleteYou should RT your emoji. I solved it (but wanted to leave the surprise for others). Perhaps a classmate will pick up on it now.
ReplyDeletehaha! I just RT-ed it!
DeleteHi Ernest! I appreciate that you and Ashley felt like the word limit made you think about saying what you wanted to say clearly and succinctly - I get that impression as well. I also feel like I'm more likely to share a link to a resource or blog with a short blurb, rather than go into huge detail describing it. That's probably a good thing for the link owners, they likely get more clicks! Nice blog post!
ReplyDeleteHi Mahalia! With the way Twitter works, it would definitely help in boosting the "business" for the links owners, since it serves more like a broadcasting medium.
DeleteIt is interesting that Twitter encourages the use of acronyms and the absence of complete words. Although it may not be intentional, meeting the word limit requires finesse or just blatant grammatical mischief. Why should I type extra words in the sentence if I can express myself via internet slang? Y shud I type xtra wrds n da sentence if I can xpress myslf n net slang? Even worse: OMG, Im not tpyn dat stuf it iz 2 long.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that our class excels at writing more concise posts, but I have witnessed an abundance of tweets that require me to sound out the sentence (a la Mark Twain).
hahaha! That's very true and relating back to the voice thread on people who uses Facebook had better test scores in verbal abilities, spelling and working memories, it would be interesting to find out if Twitter would have the opposite effect given that incomplete sentences and short forms are pretty common on Twitter!
DeleteThat is a great point! In addition to the Facebook users having better test scores, it also looks like students who use Twitter are also able to outperform those who do not use social media. Blessing, Blessing, and Fleck (2012) studied how short tweets may help students retain information. By supplying students with material relevant to the course, students were able to remember concepts and ideas that helped to improve their test scores. I guess the grammatical errors are not that significant either! Lol
DeleteBlessing, S. B., Blessing, J. S., & Fleck, B. K. B. (2012). Using twitter to reinforce classroom concepts. Teaching of Psychology, 39(4), 268-271.
Hi Jeff! Wow! That's really interesting! Thanks for sharing the article! So in other words, to do well in school, social media is the way to go haha!
DeleteHey Ernest!
ReplyDeleteI'm new to Twitter as well, and learning all the ins and outs! I teach composition at FSU and am always talking to my students about how different genres (like Twitter, Facebook, etc.) have different strengths and weaknesses, and one that I always point out is the 140 character limit on Twitter. It's strange to have to adapt what you want to say when you move from one platform to another! It seems (just from observations) that Twitter functions as more of a highlights reel, letting you link out to the long and in-depth content if the quick sentence peaks your interest - I'm trying to figure out how others use it so I can use it accordingly! Cheers to figuring this out!
Hi Rachel! Thanks for sharing your experience! When it comes to using Twitter, when I try to tweet something, it always go over the 140 character limit and the thing is, when we tweet a piece of news or information, the link to the website would have taken up most of the character, which leaves us a few characters just enough to perhaps type "see this", or "interesting". It just feels incomplete for me haha!
DeleteAnd also, like you, I am also trying to figure out "the art of tweeting" and how the others tweet on news and stuff!
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