Talking Technology: Twitters, Tweets, and Facebook

Tea Time

Written by Nicki Wilcoxson

Because it is getting to be late evening, I am now enjoying my last cup of tea for the day. This is the time for a hot cup of green tea-decaffeinated. I hope you will join me as I prepare to spend a little time with one of my favorite topics, the wildly changing, but totally fascinating world of technology.

I have long since ceased to be shocked or totally amazed by what I can do or what I can find on a computer connected to the Internet. Instead I find myself constantly challenged and sometimes struggling to keep up with an ever changing and burgeoning Internet/technology vocabulary that at times seems to makes no sense at all. Over a period of time, I have come face to face with such words as widget, apps, blogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds, tags, and furl just to name a few. Additionally, I find myself using a whole new set of words or non-words when I am engaged in email, text messaging and even blogging, posting, publishing or other forms of communication on the Web or cell phones. What a headache it must be for English teachers of today to convince students to spell “correctly,” to use complete sentences, and to punctuate correctly! But as Jennifer would remind me, “I digress”.

The technology related words that I want to focus on with this cup of tea are colorful and close to my heart as a bird lover, “Twitter” “Tweeter,” and “Tweet.” These words relate directly to the newly evolving social Web. Whereas in the beginning the Internet was used by individuals in isolation—searching via powerful search engines that sent “spiders” speeding around the Internet searching for the desired key words or information, today the key word for Internet use could be “social.” As author Will Richardson states in his book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Web Tools for Classrooms,"the biggest most sweeping change in our relationship with the Internet …is the ability to share and connect and create with many, many others of like minds and interests.” “The social Web says that we have many friends out there just waiting to be found and connected to, and those friends have other friends (friends of a friend or FOAF) who can just as easily connect with us and point us to new and interesting information or learning.” (pp.89-90) Enter, blogs and blogging, and now Twitter and Tweeter and Tweet. All of these apps (applications) are defined as social software.

Twitter is a free social messaging utility for staying connected in “real time.”

Tweeter is a Twitter interface that allows the user to post new “tweets” through possibly the Internet’s most popular social program (along with You Tube and Blogger), Facebook.

Twitterific is the Twitter version for the iPhone

One explanation for this wildly popular program is that people are compelled to make connections or to reconnect with the people in their lives. While Blogger serves much the same purpose as Facebook by providing a vehicle for reconnecting and communicating through posting and commenting, it is not done in “real time.” Users are often reluctant to write or to share on a blog for a variety of reasons. In using Twitter as its foundation, Facebook has adopted a key element of communication via “tweetering” and that is the need to answer only one question (tweet)! “What are you doing right now?” This one question can be answered once a day or as often as desired. The rationale is that answering this one question will often bring comments and questions from friends, family, and strangers that lead to getting to know one another in most unexpected and interesting ways. Most communication is short and informational or fun.

For example, if I tweet or answer the Facebook question, What are you doing right now? , by writing, “Nicki is reading The Shack.” Someone in my network might comment, “I’ve read that too and it is great.What else do you like to read?” The tweeting can progress from there with everyone in the network learning more about each other through short comments and discussions.

Now that we are all thoroughly confused, let me emphasize some points. It is NOT necessary to know about Twitter or any of the Tweets, or Tweeters at all. Facebook does it for you and here are the basics:

1) As humans we are social beings. We want or need to be part of a group (s), network, or community. At some point in our lives we often feel a need to connect or re-connect with family, friends, and even strangers. We want to be known or acknowledged. We want to connect with other like-minded people. We often feel isolated in our world. We seek ways to communicate.

2) Facebook by using social software has devised an easy and interesting way for the users of the program to accomplish connecting and communicating with friends, family, and strangers.

3) Facebook has an amazing number of features that allow security for users as well as the ability to build networks of only the people users want to have access to personal information.

4) Facebook facilitates conversation and communication between users by asking one simple question, “What are you doing right now?”

5) Facebook communication is done in real time when users are logged on to the Facebook. Chatting is another option for users.

6) Facebook members can personalize individual home pages by decorating or adding numerous features to their own “walls”.

7) Facebook offers members or users multiple options for sharing of all kinds.

8) Networks of friends, family, and strangers are done by invitation only with the option to accept or decline.

9) For the new user, patience and a willingness to learn and explore are needed. Take baby steps and don’t get frustrated.

10) When all else fails, call in the grandkids or teens in the family or neighborhood for a lesson.

My immediate family including our girls, our sons-in-law, our grandson, their aunts, uncles, cousins, old and current classmates, friends (old and new) have become Facebook users. I lurk (read without commenting) on their “walls” quite often and it is amazing how much they are learning about one another and their lives today. The atmosphere is supportive and fun. My son-in-law working in Norway for 2 weeks keeps us constantly updated on what he is doing and seeing. Our grandson, Jordie, is building a list of relatives, many of whom he has never met, and has become very interested in finding how everyone is related. He is asking questions and is pretty fascinated to learn that he has after all a much bigger family than he ever dreamed. I see adults—old and young—communicating with one another and getting acquainted.

So why all the twitter and tweeter stuff? This is our world today. If we want to be a part of that world, if we want to keep up with our children and their children, if we want to reconnect and connect with friends and family and to meet new people, we have choices to make: To Blog or not To Blog; To Tweet and Twitter or not To Tweet and Twitter; To Network or not To Network; To Keep Up or not To Keep Up; To be A Part or To be Apart.

All of you with email will at some point, if you haven’t already, receive an invitation from someone you know or someone you love to become a part of a network, possibly Facebook. What choice will you make? Are you ready for a "twitter experience?"

My cup of tea is long gone and it time for this tweeter to find her nest. Have a tweeterific day!