Life without noise; the account of a twitterless high schooler.
Hashtags, subtweets, retweets, mentions, following (or stalking); it’s all foreign to me. Still stuck in the good ol’ days of Facebook, I remain one of the proud high school teens without Twitter. I obstinately refuse to create a Twitter account and post 140 character or less blurbs about the trivial happenings of my life. Nor do I care to fill my days with incessant updates on the emotional status and current diet of my peers.
Yet I do believe that Twitter can be used for good. When utilized with discretion, Twitter is a wonderful marketing tool and source of information. Businesses often adopt accounts to expand their brand and connect with customers. Not only does Twitter make it possible for customers to freely communicate concerns, but it also acts as a prime source for coupons and specials. Loyal clients can follow businesses, sports teams, and events in order to receive up-to-date information and be rewarded for their dedication. This has left organizations clambering for advice and tips on the best way to utilize this social media outlet.
Twitter, if nothing else, can be an ideal source for news. Yet few users take advantage of the plethora of online information the social media outlet offers. While some news sources may claim that social media is rapidly growing to be the principal news resource of Americans, the Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism’s “State of the News Media 2012” report found that only 9 percent of the country’s internet users utilize Facebook or Twitter for their news. This compares with about 36 percent of users who obtain updates directly from their preferred news sites.
Twitter is an excellent, but untapped and underutilized source for breaking news. In a world where a multitude of information is a mere click away, students seem to be less connected to the world, yet well versed in the latest subtweet posted by that girl in their physics class.
Admittedly I don’t use Twitter to be the superb resource it can be, but I refuse to succumb to the black hole of drama that my friends have willingly fallen into. Spending hours scrolling through timelines, and checking updates with such consistency that they might appear to have nervous ticks, high school students often fail to employ Twitter as anything more than a tool for stalking.
It’s tempting, I don’t deny that I would probably do the same, but I remain strong in my resolve to keep my life free of fake Twitter fights and insignificant information. Life is already cluttered as is, and while some might call me crazy, I think I’ll leave tweeting to the birds.
