Learn, Think, Write

I’ve had an attitude adjustment about Twitter.
When I first started using Twitter, it seemed frivolous. I wasn’t following many people, and most seemed to tweet about what they had for breakfast.
Then, I found the edubloggers. Suddenly I was getting wonderful resources and meeting new people. I found myself checking Twitter regularly, and on those days when I couldn’t access it, I spent hours catching up, going back to reread all the tweets–even the tweets from people not following me.  After all, I didn’t want to miss anything!
But recently I’ve been frustrated. For example, I follow Will Richardson, so when he tweeted, needing examples of how people used blogs, I wanted to respond. But Will doesn’t follow me, so I knew if I responded, he wouldn’t get it. Same with Dean Shareski. For a while, Chris Lehmann followed me and then stopped. I had a moment of middle-school angst, but, hey, I’ve stopped following people for one reason or another. I understand we all can’t be all things to all people.
However, I found myself spending more and more time on Twitter and, subsequently, on people’s blogs.
Too much time. I had this overwhelming anxiety that if I didn’t read everything, I would miss whatever the application of the day was, whatever the next cool website was. You know.
So, I’ve had an epiphany.
I realize that if I miss something (even a whole DAY of Twitter), I will eventually get the information in this echo chamber. I may not get it instantly, but within a day or two, someone will post about it!
My new plan is simple.
I follow those people who mostly provide links to resources AND who follow me. I don’t want to have to worry about people with whom I have no connection. And if I miss a few pages of tweets, I’m not going to try to go back and read them all. Life is too short.
Ahhh. I feel better already.