My twitter handle is @ MRStevensonPhD. So far, I’ve found little productive use for it and I find it too time consuming to attempt to glean useful content from streams of incomplete thoughts that have little nuance. At the moment, I use Twitter to catalog things I find in electronic form that I want to be able to find later for my classes using #PSYSEXGEN. I also tell students they can use the hashtag to find further readings (rather than giving them a list of supplementary reading). I know that some people “live tweet” during public presentations and at conferences. In fact, we encouraged folks to do so at the last UMS Faculty Institute (which I helped to organize).
However, given what I know about mindfulness and the myth we call “multitasking,” I’m concerned that the energy I might put into tweeting takes me away from the present moment and a focus on whatever content I might glean from the the presentation I might be attempting to “live tweet.” This also seems to contradict advice we often give students about taking copious notes vs. focusing attention on what we are presenting in class. Again, the more energy one puts into “live tweeting,” the less energy we have to actually focus on what’s happening.
I suppose, one could spend a moment or two after a presentation and tweet whatever “take aways” you gleaned from the presentation, but I have to wonder whether other people really benefit from having access to my notes. Or maybe I’ve missed the point, perhaps live tweeting is simply a way to build a digital identity, to announce that you attended a particular talk, etc. Maybe, it isn’t really about content…
autumm says
Thanks for this post Michael – I think that your reflections on Twitter here are often true. I got my start with twitter by live tweeting conferences though I’ve drifted from that particular practice in recent years and don’t do it nearly as much as I used to. I will say that, for me, it was more than just pushing out the tweets in those moments – so yes more than just the content. It was also reading the other tweets that were coming in, choosing to amplify some, choosing to reply to some, etc. It was pretty rapid fire and I do think that there were times that I missed out on a large portion of the actual presentation. Especially if a tweet generated a reply to which I would respond and maybe others would jump in too… now I’m in a full blown side conversation about some aspect of something the presenter said 10min ago but they have since moved on. It can be distracting but I do think that there is a different kind of value to be had here. Many of those that I’ve gotten into these side conversations with have become important parts of a broader network for me and have contributed to my thinking in ways that continue to build and grow.These days I find myself more often in those Twitter conversations during online events rather than face to face ones.