Social Media Milestone

Last night I was reviewing my 200+ posts on Twitter, and realized that I had let an anniversary slip by. I started tweeting on Sept. 13 of last year, and soon was sending updates about our heavy rains following Tropical Depression Ike as it drifted northward and got hung up right over St. Louis. I joined Twitter so I could follow a friend who was sending updates from an event. He has since dropped out of Twitter, but I have managed to find a use for the 140-character brevity in these little messages. Today I learned (from Old Media, like Radio Station KMOX) that the co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, is a St. Louis native. He grew up not far from the church we now attend in the Compton neighborhood. On TV tonight, he looks so YOUNG.

Unfortunately, I tend to be a follower and not an early adopter of technology. (The lone exception was computing itself; our office at the University was among the first to get PCs in the mid 1980s, but at first all we did was use them as infinitely correctable typewriters. I was suspicious of the Mac interface (having started on CPM and graduated to DOS by taking free courses) at first, but when I had the chance to teach in a Mac lab, I jumped in and haven't looked back. I loved having students submit work as e-mail attachments so I could add comments electronically and send them back for revision instead of going through red or green ink.

But the pioneering spirit stopped there. By the time I really went for e-mail, younger people were into chat instead. (I've resisted IM so far.) I finally got into blogging after I saw what a niece could do with pictures and what a former student could do with words. That was in 2006, about the time that cell phones started having text and every young person developed sore thumb joints. No text for me....I want my phone to just be a phone. Although when my 2-year agreement with my way too expensive carrier expires in November, I won't be renewing it. I'm going to get something like a Jitterbug for plain old calls and then...well..I must confess that I would like an iPod Touch. I didn't realize you could surf the 'net for free and check your email on one at free wifi hot spots, until this spring when a computer savvy 30-something friend showed me. That would save me having to pack the laptop when I travel! Of course, I don't have any kind of iPod now, and by the time I get one, they will be Old, too, I guess.

Geting back to Twitter, at first I wasn't sure how useful it could be, but in my review tonight I find it makes a perfect online diary that gives me the dates the first hummingbird showed up, when the first tree frog croaked, when the raspberries were ripe, how many sleet storms we had last winter, etc. As well as departures and arrivals on trips, various ailments and other things that I posted to update the family. I think I'll just print the tweets for this year out and paste them in that dead tree journal I never have time to write in anymore.

A number of former students have also found me on Twitter and I enjoy following them and reading their updates. (Well, most of the time. I don't really need to know that your lunch gave you indigestion...) But even Twitter has lost some of its allure for the tech savvy. Everyone is on FaceBook now.

One of my close friends follows the exploits of her grandbaby on her daughter's FaceBook page. But she and I are the same age and if she can figure out FaceBook, well, I don't want to be behind. I keep getting requests to be friends with people and so far I have ignored them, but I think I'm going to have to give in. I have resisted so far because if I join FaceBook, something else will have to give--blogging? Twitter? Sleep? There aren't enough hours in the day! (Or Night.) But I'm also aware that as soon as I finally sign in to FaceBook, I'll read an article the next morning in the New York Times (online, of course--another nail in the coffin of print) telling me that sites like FaceBook are now passe too, and the Next New Thing is what I need. Sigh.

Just in case, I still have my Royal manual portable typewriter in its case in a closet upstairs, and last time I checked, the ribbon still had ink in it. You never know: the entire electrical grid we take for granted could crash and I want to be prepared. Someday paper and ink could once again be the Next New Thing. Meanwhile, feel free to follow me on Twitter, or read this blog, or whatever suits your level of techhie comfort. And when I do find the time and energy to debut on FaceBook, my loyal readers here will be among The First To Know. Thank you, and good night!