The one about how twitter changed me.

I'll admit to being a bit of a twitterer, and have been for a couple of years, well 3 years, 4 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 20 hours, 40 minutes, 35 seconds, apparently.

And it's changed me. In a good way. I think. I

For me Twitter has opened me up to statements, questions, positions, and opinions that I've really had to question, and it's been deliberate. I've enjoyed a lot of twitter, as a participant and as an observer.

Sure it's allowed me to group with people who feel the same way, and to form weak warm fuzzy bonds with some people, particularly on subjects like Cricket, or Rugby League, or Football, or Beer for instance. Sure it's allowed me to participate in the current meme.

The thing with twitter for me, is to follow people that I have some association or empathy with, either they're funny, authentic, urbane or mildly famous, but in Pdubyahworld I associate with them on some level. Although I "follow" less than 500 people in a timeline that I visit most often, I do have lists that contain perhaps 500 other people that I'm going to read.

And on some days it's a challenge. Somehow it transpires that I follow (and have listed) a lot of left-wing socialist types. They have opinions and statements that make me grind my teeth, on some days. But they are authentic and they are genuine, and I'm sure some of them are mildly famous. Which makes me sound a bit right-wing and conservative. I'd rather be thought of as liberal and self-centric :-)

From this melange then, Twitter has made me question and form actual opinions about things. About things like same sex marriage. About things like welfare. About things like the justice system. About things like religion, About things like gender equality. About things like ethics. Proper opinions, not toss-off remarks to mates over a beer in a pub opinions, but real ones. And I've changed my opinions, particularly over the last 3 years. Not all of them. Some of them.

And I think that these changes have made me more tolerant, less of a bigot, and a calmer person. I'm sure not everyone uses twitter for the same reason I do, which is a whole other post about needy, and not everyone gets the same result. There are as many drop-outs as there are adherents.

The rest of the time is affirmation that I'm among a group of like-minded people who would probably be the sort to stop and help in a crisis. Which is reassuring.

Keeping it a secret

I realised something. The twitter me, and this the ranting rambling no-mates blog me, aren't that comfortable that my real live friends could read it.

It's bad enough having a boss that's on twitter, and workmates on FaceBook.

What do I have to hide? Well I'm not sure, perhaps the real me, the insecure me? Or perhaps the frivolous me, the unfunny me, the me that is just me to me.

I can't imagine any of my colleagues reading this, I can't imagine them reading. I can't imagine them twittering, although a couple of them do have accounts, they are passive observers.

I'm down with that. There is far to much 'me' in the twitterverse and a lot of me in here. I've bagged a few people cryptically and openly on both.

Am I afraid that I'd end with no mates? I'm not that sure I have more than a handful anyway.

Truthing on Twitter

One of my followers is also my boss. This is problematic of course because there are days when all I want to say is how much of a doofus he is. 'cept that he will read it and then it could go badly.

There are peeps I follow that seem to be angry all the time, and it's like a stream of bad-tempered bursts of 140 character railing against the world, everything, men, pets, makes me annoyed because among them there are people I know, and like, in an internetty kind of way.

How important is the number of followers, what vanity is it to outwardly say that all you want really is x number of followers. We can all get those. But it must be quality rather than quantity. Do you think that your whole follower list actually reads your 140 character bursts ? What all of them ? Get on with you .

I could of course address my angst by making yet another twitter account- one which I can be anonymous in, but anonymity is not my strong thing. I'm a serial user of my own name as user-name and blogname places.

And Twitter- is it for marketing or presence ? Who are all these "experts" who actually don't tell you anything or impart knowledge but pass the story from person to person like a parcel of truth. Am I having a pop at SM experts now? I guess I am.

Which leads me to the other bit. Of course I look after an account that is our corporate presence. 'cept my boss thinks that he needs to follows x number of social media experts on our follow list, wherein I go and unfollow most of them as not appropriate. I've got away with it so far.

Social media then, tricky on the field as well as off it. I'll get he hang of it one day.