A New Take on Twitter

Although I’d first heard about Twitter sometime around 2007, it wasn’t until recently that I elected to sign up—after I realized how much I enjoyed reading tweets posted by Digital Union staff. Prior to then, it wasn’t that I was avoiding Twitter, exactly. Instead, I prioritized other technologies as part of my “digital diet” (so many tempting technologies to try out; so little time…).

But that’s the nifty thing about tweets: they’re limited to 140 characters in length. Even so, a pithy tweet can pack a punch. Thus I’ve found that there really is room in my digital diet to indulge in some “byte-sized pieces” [I’ve never been able to resist a corny pun]. Tweets help keep me up-to-date and introduce me to new ideas, yet because of their brevity, they don’t take up too much time in my day.

I’d feared that once I subscribed to Twitter, I’d be inundated with tweets via text e-mail and text messages, generating a form of digital noise akin to the din of house sparrows. Instead, I learned, by adjusting the settings on my Twitter account, I can configure how I receive tweets in much the same way as I manage updates from Facebook and LinkedIn.

It may take another five years before I tweet, myself. After all, I have a digital diet to maintain—and a propensity toward long-windedness that tweeting cannot accommodate. For now, I’m content to listen in and learn.