Week without Twitter – Day 3

This third twitterless day was tough, I’ll have to admit. I was lucky enough to be in a policy development meeting facilitated by Rick Schwier. It seemed very strange to me that I didn’t have any outlet for expressing my ideas/reactions/stupid jokes during the meeting. I actually had to (gasp) pay attention to the meeting. This turned out to be an asset since I’m having a sleep deprived week (but not because I’ve been up late getting my Twitter fix) and unnecessary distraction would have severely impaired my ability to stay on topic during the meeting. And with Rick facilitating the meeting, it was worth giving my full attention (and for other reasons as well, but that’s for another post).

I noticed that I’ve been feeling a kind of social isolation as this week goes on, and I think that might be a clue to the attractiveness of twitter (or other social networking tools). People often live and work away from the community where they grew up. Being intensely social beings, we need to find some sort of community to belong to, usually based on some similar interests or goals. I think there are many people, and being somewhat of an educational technology nerd I would include myself in this group, who don’t have a geographically close group of peers to interact with. Instead we have used some technology tools to connect with others like us, forming a virtual tribe of sorts. Currently I am in a self imposed exile from my tribe.

I would be remiss if I didn’t look at the complementary effect of being twitter-less. I’ve noticed that the people who are around me – my colleagues, my students and (most important) my family are getting my more focused attention. I hope that they are enjoying having that as much as I am.