Personal Blogs

An account of learning to use and understand the context of, Twitter, intended to support other less tech-savvy digital immigrants on their journeys.

Introduction:  The use of social media is all around us, and it would seem useful at the least to have an understanding of why it is used, and how, so as to decide how useful it is in certain contexts, and how far one may wish (or need) to get involved in using it.

A Twitter story: 

I first used it a couple of years ago as part of an OU (Open University) pilot social media training – I managed to make a start, and got a Twitter ID, and tweeted once or twice, but wasn’t really sure how to build it up, or why I would want to, except for a hazy idea of running chi kung exercise classes, and tweeting on the day I was doing them (where and when), so anyone in Milton Keynes in the mood and available could come along.

Then, within my professional complementary medicine practice (Japanese shiatsu bodywork), and with a role as a director of our professional body, it seemed important to be able to use social media to publicise our practice, and Twitter seemed one ‘modern’ way to do it.  Our chair had experience of using various social media, including Twitter, and a local shiatsu colleague, Wendy Francis, also has an IT business, and is knowledgable about its use.  In my role as director responsible for organising our annual Shiatsu Society congress, I invited Wendy to run a session on social media and how it might be used to raise awareness of shiatsu.  Wendy put together a wonderful talk, and interestingly, our celebrity shiatsu teacher from Japan via New York, Ohashi, attended this session, and chatted with Wendy afterwards ‘as one computer dude to another’.

It took me a while to ‘get’ Twitter – Jonathan Haynes at the Guardian Open Weekend[1]. [me too! ed]

I remember hearing about Twitter a few years ago, and a colleague telling a group of us at an OU meeting about it, in pre-meeting chat.  She said it was a system for just using a few words, and for example sharing uninteresting trivia like ‘I’ve just made a cup of coffee’.  Around that time, as mentioned above, I was invited to sign up for a social media training but got stuck and didn’t complete it.  Jonathan also said how Twitter gave him the opportunity to engage with celebrities or other well known/ important people in a way that he probably wouldn’t have, or couldn’t have, done otherwise. 

Subsequent to this, I have (somewhat reluctantly) joined the 4.5 million people who follow Stephen Fry, and found myself frequently impressed and amused by his posts, though sometimes a bit on the crude side for my taste.  I’ve also enjoyed the linked Mrs Stephen Fry, Princess Kate(ish), Prince William(ish) and Elizabeth Windsor.

More seriously, with regard to my interest in health care practice (particularly Japanese shiatsu treatment), I have followed some of the Quackwatch team – Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh, Edzard Ernst, David Colquhoun.  I managed to engage with Simon Singh about the concept of placebo, and wrote a linked post in my blog (visitthequack.blogspot.com).  Simon Singh replied with impressive swift intelligence within a few minutes of my Sunday morning post, and now I would ideally find an intelligent way to respond.  I was struck by how much energy these Tweeters put into posting anti-CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) tweets, with a particular ‘concern’ about homeopathy.

We have passed the point of only watching one screen at a time[2] - Suzanne Moore in the session ‘Twitter: tool of elites?’

Suzanne Moore mentioned this during a session about Twitter during the Guardian Open Weekend in March 2012.  Again, something fell into place when she said this – she mentioned watching television along with various other screens.  Just recently, I managed to watch Any Questions on BBC 1 (actually after the event) and lined up my Twitter account to see what people were saying.  Actually, it wasn’t very edifying and I don’t know if I’d do it again.  People were being quite rude, and using swear words in a way that I have not seen before on the internet.  Somehow, it seems particularly crude when used in this medium, even though my language day to day probably includes such words.

What also clicked for me in these sessions was that to engage with Twitter one may often have an angle.  Some people engage in a more straight way, for example, Ed Miliband apparently will tweet about having attended  a successful meeting somewhere.  By contrast, and of course he is no longer in power, John Prescott gives a more passionate, personal, polemical perspective in his tweets.  So I changed my rather straight Twitter description, and constructed something which I felt represented more of my self, including various aspects of my perspective[3].

Serendipity

Driving along recently, I caught a programme on Radio 4[4] where they mentioned ‘serendipity’ in the use of Twitter (and actually, also, Google and Facebook).  Since I am focussing on Twitter at the moment, I found myself resonating with this comment – once said, it fell into place, the use of Twitter includes (for me) lots of serendipity – I follow so many people that my ‘Twitter feed’ is too full for me to catch every post.  I was quite hooked to start with for a while, but inevitably this fell off so now I pop by, and see what there is from where I last looked, and generally then go to the present and look backwards.  I also look at people that interest me, and their statements, following links, and then also at who they are following, and/or who follows them.  This may result in me following more people, as they catch my interest.

To conclude:

presumably, the story doesn’t end here.  I find I learn iteratively, and gradually build perceptions on what this particular online social medium may be used for.  So far, I have moved from seeing it as a somewhat cumbersome way to share thoughts to a rather clever, if perhaps potentially manipulative resource, worthy of some laughs and generating some interesting engagement.

note for OU context:

sooo, when and why would we use Twitter in the OU context?  I remember a tutor colleague from the Faculty of Business and Law saying that she used it to alert her tutor group to forthcoming tutorial.  For me, I think I would still need to master how to set up a sub-group so these tweets only went to the intended group and no others.  So far, I think I would find that an extra fiddle, coupled with the fact that very few of my students would be following me, or know how to if invited.

In my 2^nd level Health and Social Care module, I found myself mentioning Twitter recently, because students are expected to update and explore using various more academic and media means.  Our forum discussion led us to discuss some of the anti-CAM lobby, and so I mentioned the case study discussed above in case any student found that a useful link.  In fact, no-one so far has followed this up, which may be a reflection of the fact these students may not be very knowledgeable or active in this form of social media.  From my experience so far, they seem more likely to be on Facebook, and some have contacted me on the Facebook account I set up when I did the OU social media training mentioned earlier.

So, presently, I see potential for the use of Twitter for alerting students to more political policy debates around health and social care.

What do you think?

©Catherine Scanlon, June 2012