Confessions from a Former Twitter Addict
Confession: I am a recovering Twitter addict.
I kid, I kid, but there was a time when my life was fairly consumed by Twitter. From 2010 to 2012, I worked and interned for a number of print and online sports media publications. In the sports biz, if you are not monitoring Twitter constantly (and I mean constantly), you risk losing out on a big scoop or a piece of noteworthy news that could affect the team you're covering.
I loved the internships and jobs I was working; they allowed me to cover FSU football, basketball, baseball, soccer, etc etc and the opportunities for hands-on learning were incredible. Bosses and mentors instilled in me the value of social media for a sports reporter and I became a twitter fanatic. They encouraged a robust tweeting schedule, as tagged tweets and engagement with followers created a bigger audience for the site and the articles we wrote (a topic I'd like to dive into more in the future).
As such, I tweeted dozens of interview quotes and stats each day, hashtagging them with various FSU athletics tags in order to reach a wider audience. The publications I was working for often retweeted me and my follower count grew, reinforcing my vigorous tweeting habit. I found myself searching for new stats to tweet or for new spins on an old stat. I felt like I was working against an ever-growing quota and was encouraged to beat the previous day's tweet count with each passing day. I was spending several hours each day on Twitter.
I rationalized it as all part of a hard day's work, but eventually I was forced to take a step back as graduation loomed and I suddenly found myself struggling with other life responsibilities in the midst of a semester where I was taking 21 credits and working over 65 hours a week between several sports writing gigs. There were times where I missed chunks of what an interviewee was saying because I was so focused on live tweeting short quote bursts. I had let myself spiral into a cycle where I tweeted simply to tweet. It became a hindrance to actually doing my job as a sports writer.
Since then, I've spent a lot of time lurking on Twitter, not really contributing to conversations, but following them with interest. I've found I have thankfully learned a lot since leaving my tweet-happy self behind. I better understand how to participate in an online discussion in a way that adds value, rather than in a way that adds noise to the void. And I find I have more appreciation for users (especially reporters and writers) who create and publish substantive tweets rather than the fluff I was encouraged to tweet out.
I look forward to engaging on twitter and other social media platforms throughout this course and in the future in a way that is valuable and meaningful. I still love a good sports pun or silly interview quote, but I think it will be particularly interesting to compare and contrast my experiences with Twitter this time around to how I experienced Twitter in the past.
I kid, I kid, but there was a time when my life was fairly consumed by Twitter. From 2010 to 2012, I worked and interned for a number of print and online sports media publications. In the sports biz, if you are not monitoring Twitter constantly (and I mean constantly), you risk losing out on a big scoop or a piece of noteworthy news that could affect the team you're covering.
I loved the internships and jobs I was working; they allowed me to cover FSU football, basketball, baseball, soccer, etc etc and the opportunities for hands-on learning were incredible. Bosses and mentors instilled in me the value of social media for a sports reporter and I became a twitter fanatic. They encouraged a robust tweeting schedule, as tagged tweets and engagement with followers created a bigger audience for the site and the articles we wrote (a topic I'd like to dive into more in the future).
As such, I tweeted dozens of interview quotes and stats each day, hashtagging them with various FSU athletics tags in order to reach a wider audience. The publications I was working for often retweeted me and my follower count grew, reinforcing my vigorous tweeting habit. I found myself searching for new stats to tweet or for new spins on an old stat. I felt like I was working against an ever-growing quota and was encouraged to beat the previous day's tweet count with each passing day. I was spending several hours each day on Twitter.
I rationalized it as all part of a hard day's work, but eventually I was forced to take a step back as graduation loomed and I suddenly found myself struggling with other life responsibilities in the midst of a semester where I was taking 21 credits and working over 65 hours a week between several sports writing gigs. There were times where I missed chunks of what an interviewee was saying because I was so focused on live tweeting short quote bursts. I had let myself spiral into a cycle where I tweeted simply to tweet. It became a hindrance to actually doing my job as a sports writer.
Since then, I've spent a lot of time lurking on Twitter, not really contributing to conversations, but following them with interest. I've found I have thankfully learned a lot since leaving my tweet-happy self behind. I better understand how to participate in an online discussion in a way that adds value, rather than in a way that adds noise to the void. And I find I have more appreciation for users (especially reporters and writers) who create and publish substantive tweets rather than the fluff I was encouraged to tweet out.
I look forward to engaging on twitter and other social media platforms throughout this course and in the future in a way that is valuable and meaningful. I still love a good sports pun or silly interview quote, but I think it will be particularly interesting to compare and contrast my experiences with Twitter this time around to how I experienced Twitter in the past.
"I better understand how to participate in an online discussion in a way that adds value, rather than in a way that adds noise to the void. " Love this thought! I think a lot of folks misunderstand Twitter as a void of noise, but the value is there if you know how to find it.
ReplyDeleteVery thoughtful confessions! Look forward to seeing your tweets. :)
ReplyDeleteSo true. After feeling overwhelmed by the tsunami-type floods of incoming tweets, I noticed that I only read a tiny fraction from my feed. There's just way too much content to respond to in any given amount a time as it keeps stacking. Taking some time off from social media helps. Also, full time lurking does not require any obligations or reactions, so that can be winning too.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your story, Alexis. Your story tells me a lot. I am just thinking my story... I was actually addicted from an online MMORPG for 2 years when I was 14 years old. Now I think my past experience was not that bad. It gave me a lot. Being addicted from something is not always harmful I think.
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