My Love Affair and Subsequent Breakup with Twitter and Why We Might Give It Another Go

At first it was just an innocent flirtation.  I’d heard about this guy called Twitter.  He sounded cute, so I thought I’d check him out.  I  downloaded Twitterific so I could get to know him.  We started to spend a little time together, but there wasn’t much by way of commitment.   I followed a few people, and slowly I was drawn into a relationship.   It was the fall of 2007.

Tweets began to trickle in, and the relationship blossomed and soon became magical.  I was finally starting to feel comfortable enough with Twitter to try some new things.  I hesitated as I sent out my first tweet, mired by self-doubt, “Is this important enough?”  “Is anyone out there listening?”  “Will people care?”

Just as so many people have experienced, my first time was a disappointment.  All I could muster with my 140 characters was an insipid,

Hello, this is my first use of twitter! —
Heidi Beezley (@HeidiBeez) November 05, 2007

My face glows a bit red thinking about it.

After the first time, it got better.  My tweets became a means of communicating, collaboration, and some light ribbing (admittedly, some tweets were just as prosaic as the first).  I felt so connected.  Twitter introduced me to some of his friends from around the world.  We got to know each other, share with each other, help each other.  I got off on answering people’s questions from hundreds of miles away or getting help from those same people in return.

Soon the Twitterific app where we spent time together just wasn’t enough.  We mixed it up with Twhirl, Nambu, and TweetDeck just to keep it interesting.  I followed more and more people so that Twitter and I could spend more of our day together.   I followed experts in the fields of education, technology, instructional design and local tweeters from San Diego.  Tweets sparkled on my screen like little fireworks exploding (in the bottom left or top left of my screen depending on the app) throughout my day.  Each one brought a great link, an insightful 140 character commentary on life, or a funny picture or video.  With Twitter I experienced things I had never dreamed possible.  A link from the Smithsonian let me watch as artists laid out cupcake portraits of presidents…Another link from NASA let me watch the Space Shuttle launch live…I saw pictures from disasters on Twitter before they appeared two days later on The New York Times and other news outlets.  I felt cool.  I felt alive.

Then things started to go wrong as our relationship began to feel more like a burden than a bright glimmer of sunlight; the relationship lost its shine.  Twitter distracted me at work.  Every few seconds he demanded my attention.  Sometimes the same exact tweet reverberating through tweetdome came back again and again as it was retweeted in volleys.   Each time the retweet caught my eye because the alert sound didn’t discriminate, and I didn’t want to miss anything.  Each time I grumbled as I went back to doing what I actually needed to do.  I felt claustrophobic.  I snapped at him, “Can’t I just concentrate on this project for a few minutes, Twitter?”

Also, I realized that well more than 75% of what Twitter talked about was stuff I just didn’t care about.  Twitter was boring me, and we didn’t have as much in common as I thought.   Was this really productivity?  Are the three great links I got each day worth all of the time that I was spending reading tweets to find them?  Especially since, even though they were fascinating, they didn’t really pertain to my current workflow?  They just were great lists of the top 10 free screencasters in case I need one instead of the one that my employer bought for me that has so many more features.  Couldn’t I just search for stuff when I needed it?

It seemed like to keep the relationship going, I had to be with Twitter not just every day or every few hours, but every minute.  It was always such trivial stuff that Twitter wanted to talk about.  The whole relationship started to feel like work.  Maybe all of this information coming from so many directions made me more of a well-rounded person with my finger on the pulse of humanity, but it made me much less of a well-grounded person.  Plus, Twitter made me feel stupid – I’d see all of the tweets about X conference or X tool or X feature.  I’d feel overwhelmed.  I’d have to click on the tweet and then research the topic because clearly if Twitter is talking to me about these things, then I should know something about them, but it just got to be an impossible task keeping up with such a smarty pants.

We grew apart.  I started ignoring Twitter and started pursuing my own interests.  In March 2010, I sent out my last tweet.    Honestly, the relationship had already fallen apart.  I had stopped having TweetDeck open on my desktop long before that.

At ISTE2010, I thought we could go into counseling – maybe a professional could convince me that this relationship was worth saving.  But in the end it just didn’t seem important enough.  Twitter and I went our separate ways.

Fast forward to today.  Now that we’ve had our trial separation, I feel like maybe we could try again.  Okay I hear you asking, “Why am I considering giving it another go after rambling for a whole blog post about how it ended?”  Sadly most of my reasons for trying again are selfish, but I think Twitter could be good for me again.  I’ve started a new job where I know that I will have a bit more free time to read blogs, chase links, and of course interact with Twitter, so there’s more space in my life for someone like Twitter.  I’d love to start sharing ideas with people who are doing similar things.   And don’t tell anyone, but I’ve been seeing Twitter secretly for the past few days.  I have Twitter on my iPad, and TweetDeck on my PC.  But if it’s going to work, this time I’m going to have boundaries and there are going to be some rules.

1. No Twitter on my phone. Twitter is not allowed to bother me literally at all times of the day during all occasions, since I will invariably have my phone with me all the time.  (Okay those of you who know me, stop chuckling at this one)
2. If I am working on something, ignore Twitter. If I am trying to focus on a project for a few hours, I have to ignore Twitter notifications as they appear or turn off the app.  Twitter will have his special time with me, but not all of my time.  No more head jerk dance as I keep glancing at the tweets on the screen and falling behind in my work.
3. I will repeat a mantra when Twitter starts to stress me out.  “Let it go.  Let it go.  I can’t read every tweet.” If I missed some tweets, they were probably just the one hundredth time that someone has re-tweeted “the iPad was just named the best new gadget.”  Even if it was something I could have used – who cares?  I’ll get by somehow without it.
4. Purposeful Tweeting - I will try to learn from the best how to do this Twitter thing again and do it effectively.  In fact, if you’ve read this far and you have some advice for me, please give me a comment.  What are the best Twitter integrations?  Do you really use the Twitter – Evernote @myen thing or is it not worth worrying about?  What Twitter apps should I use?  I just don’t really know Twitter any more.   Help me get to know him again.  Plus, how do you hear what you want to hear in the cacophony of voices out there?  Is there a great new way to sift?  Seriously, I need advice – be my relationship counselor.

I probably should have more rules, but hopefully this can be enough of a foundation for Twitter and I to start to get to know each other again.  I walk into the relationship this time more worldly and less starry-eyed.  Sure our relationship won’t have the romance and excitement that our initial courtship had, and maybe I’m a little too jaded at this point for the relationship to sparkle at all, but at least it is unlikely that I will be as crushingly disappointed this time.

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