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To Tweet Or Not To Tweet? That Is The Question!


Mr. Chatywin et al.

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Hivemind,

I'm curious to get an idea of various peoples social media use. I only use this place and Facebook for a bit every other day, but lately I've been feeling that there just isn't a way to escape things like Twitter or IG anymore. I really underestimated how much they can help you personally and professionally. So what have your social media experiences been like? Do you find a lot of value in it, or are you the type that tries to use only a little bit of their services, or none at all?

Discuss. 

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I have to admit my Twitter has been surprisingly useful. I'm fairly cautious about keeping it a mostly professional platform, but I've definitely made contacts through it and it does help sort of keep abreast of things in my particular niche. 

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Hmn. 

In the last 20 years I've changed a lot. Or maybe mellowed, I don't know. A large part of that growth [beyond getting married, kids, divorced, having to grow the fuck up and be a father] was this board, and the various people I've interacted with and learned from here. But the board, well, you know. Anyway, I got into Facebook late only to end up dumping it two years ago. But I had this itch. I use Twitter now. And, much like this board, I'm learning a lot there. 

Through your follows you can kind of tailor your experience, although there's no escaping some of the rage inducing shit no matter how hard you try to, though there's a lot of really good shit you might not otherwise be exposed to either that just kind of eeks its way in too. And news breaks crazy fast there. If it peaked my outrage, or interest, whatever, by the time I'm watching news coverage on TV I'm already well versed in the subject matter.  

I don't use it for networking, don't need to, I'm officially retired now-- but I suppose I kind of use it as a network to compliment my interests. The world is full of smart, compassionate people, and you can really tune into your areas of interest through people knowledgeable in whatever those might be and then leapfrog as they expose you to others in their [or other related] fields.

Or experiences. Like, I always felt I hand a handle on how hard Canada has been on the Indigenous Peoples here, but whatever I thought I knew or felt paled in the face of what I was exposed to through ntv twitter. 

Rendering all things plumb [real life, board, Facebook, etc] my personal experience is that Twitter is pretty fucking great.  

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Facebook is dead as far as I’m concerned. Nobody I know uses it any more and the majority of my feed seems to be made up up adverts or promotions from pages I followed once. There might be a few family members and old people keeping the place going but it’s been going down the toilet for a while now.

Instagram is a young persons game but i get the instant appeal. I’m lucky to have been just a bit too old for it to be important for me. But if I was younger and wanted to get laid then my Insta would have been my life I’m sure.

I never understood the appeal of twitter for a while, now I use it completely passively, as more of an RSS feed than anything else. Getting into conversations on Twitter seems like a recipe for disaster and it’s mainly a cesspit of idiocy.

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  • Facebook - haven't used it for years, then got tired of "you need to log in to see this link someone sent you" so I created an account and use it only to be able to open links people send me
  • Twitter - quite liked it, the format is quite suited to quick exchange of information. I used it regularly for a couple of years then got tired of it
  • Instagram - have been using it for 5 years or so, quite like it. Use it to keep track of friends and family abroad and to check memes :D I post rather infrequently, only when I do or see something I don't do or see every day
  • LinkedIn - not active in it, but has been quite useful since I've changed several jobs through LinkedIn contacts

I think that's it.

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Twitter as an experience is exactly what you make of it. The appeal is entirely down to your choice of whom to follow. If you follow fun, interesting people, it will be fun and interesting. If you follow friends who write boring tweets, it will be boring. Corporate Twitter is laughably forced and staid, a collection of people at the same company following each other and posting bland nothings; there are some ancillary exceptions, like infosec Twitter, which can be very interesting. Political Twitter is useful to stay on top of the news, but is generally a cesspool of dumb to engage in. It's good to follow a few accounts for breaking news as well, especially local ones that you won't hear from otherwise without actively seeking them out.

I have seriously considered deleting my Twitter account, much as I enjoy it, in the face of mounting evidence that it's run by Nazi sympathizers, or at least people who are happy to let Nazis run amok on their platform while banning others for little or no reason. I haven't yet but it's very much on the table.

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5 minutes ago, Inigima said:

I have seriously considered deleting my Twitter account, much as I enjoy it, in the face of mounting evidence that it's run by Nazi sympathizers, or at least people who are happy to let Nazis run amok on their platform while banning others for little or no reason. I haven't yet but it's very much on the table.

Haha, this just shows how many different views of Twitter there are. There is an identical conversation that Twitter is being run by left wing extremists who are happy to let left wing nutters run amok on their platform while banning conservatives for little or no reason. 

Twitter can be an echo chamber pretty easily. Which I think is one of the big issues Twitter is trying to address.

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As a new author, I’ve been using twitter to try and get ‘out there’.

I don’t think its had much of an impact on sales, but its good to try and make contacts. Does feel a bit like too many authors rather than readers, which I’ve found in a lot of the FB groups I’ve joined.

One thing i dont like are follow trains. A lot of people want a lot of followers but that does mean you dont interact with most.

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1 hour ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

As a new author, I’ve been using twitter to try and get ‘out there’.

I don’t think its had much of an impact on sales, but its good to try and make contacts. Does feel a bit like too many authors rather than readers, which I’ve found in a lot of the FB groups I’ve joined.

One thing i dont like are follow trains. A lot of people want a lot of followers but that does mean you dont interact with most.

link your twitter, plz

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1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Haha, this just shows how many different views of Twitter there are. There is an identical conversation that Twitter is being run by left wing extremists who are happy to let left wing nutters run amok on their platform while banning conservatives for little or no reason. 

Twitter can be an echo chamber pretty easily. Which I think is one of the big issues Twitter is trying to address.

Yes, there is that conversation, but that conversation is being driven by, depending on your view, either delusional lunatics or cynical Machiavellian fascists. This is not an exaggeration. I'm on mobile and on my way out the door in a few minutes and will have to dig up the receipts later, but there is absolutely no supportable way to draw that conclusion. Twitter receives jillions of verifiable reports of hate speech, white supremacy, and targeted harassment and routinely decides that it should stay up. 

I will say I think the temporary suspension of Mitch McConnell's account this week is bizarre and unsupportable. That's the exception, though.

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20 minutes ago, Relic said:

link your twitter, plz

@sootyfeathers

I think my twitter and public author page are in my sig, but not sure as I mostly visit this forum in my phone!

I’ve been dabbling with instagram, as real places either feature in my novels or inspire places, so its food to show these places and do cover reveals. I need to get more involved in it.

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3 minutes ago, Inigima said:

Yes, there is that conversation, but that conversation is being driven by, depending on your view, either delusional lunatics or cynical Machiavellian fascists. This is not an exaggeration. I'm on mobile and on my way out the door in a few minutes and will have to dig up the receipts later, but there is absolutely no supportable way to draw that conclusion. Twitter receives jillions of verifiable reports of hate speech, white supremacy, and targeted harassment and routinely decides that it should stay up. 

I will say I think the temporary suspension of Mitch McConnell's account this week is bizarre and unsupportable. That's the exception, though.

I’ve heard a lot of what those at Twitter have to say and I don’t really see any conspiracy either way. If both left and right think Twitter are against them then they must be doing something right.

I think it boils down to how they deal with individual tweets, whether it’s repeated threatening behaviour, how many times it gets reported and who reports it. 

They are clearly trying to do a better job but it’s often impossible to police everything, and then the argument is whether Twitter should be the abitar of what is or isn’t acceptable 

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I like Twitter for getting quick alerts as to what's happening, agree political twitter is good for info but engaging in there is pretty much screaming into the void, although even that feels good sometimes.  

Twitter also has some insanely funny content out there that just entertains the shit out of me.  I think if I had spent all the time I'd spent on this board on Twitter instead I could have a 'weird' Twitter account that I could have turned into a career by now.  Missed the window though.

Instagram I like for keeping up with friends who are all spread out over the world, without having the weird voyeuristic panopticon element of FB.  

 

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Facebook - Check this once every 1-2 weeks just to see what events people are planning.

Twitter - Have a handle, but don't use it and don't particularly like it

IG - Again, I have a handle & a bunch of friends, but I don't find a ton of value out of it.  Too much fake bull shit for my tastes.

LinkedIn - Use this a ton for professional networking, promoting my technical blog, etc...

Reddit - I use this the most and subscribe mainly to technical subreddits like r/java, r/reactjs, etc...  Mostly great for the articles and announcements that come from new technology releases.  There's a lot of assholes on it (not unlike twitter), so I pretty much stick to reading articles and answering questions.

Been getting News from my Apple News feed instead of any social media site.  Get a pretty good view w/out all the bickering, so my stress levels have decreased since moving from FB/Reddit/etc...

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7 hours ago, Relic said:

Really? Dang...that's rad. Guess you have time to travel now =P 

Yup. Been doing lots already, though around Canada. Cuba is next, but clearly we're going to have to meet up somewhere, brother. Prague maybe? Let's talk.

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I’ll sound like a curmudgeon but I’ve never used Facebook, Insta, Twitter, Tumblr or any of the truly “social” of the social media.  I view them as empty, pointless distortions of reality that negatively affect the psychology of their users.  Any content that’s actually relevant or worthwhile will float up the media food chain pretty quickly.

I use Linked-In passively to be able to reconnect with professional contacts who have changed roles.  I hate the recent move toward a Facebook-like content stream of self-promotion and virtue signaling.  But I just don’t read any of it, so it doesn’t bother me.

I do occasionally scroll through Reddit to see cute videos of animals or idiots nearly taking themselves out of the gene pool. 

I’m pretty sure history will remember current Twitter alongside the Salem witch trials.

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