THING 3 Twitter and On-line Communities

I have a twitter account @mybookbests.  I took a class on twitter on-line through UB and I enjoyed it.  I look at twitter but I do not really use it.  For this class I reviewed the materials.  I was especially interested in the article, "Twitter is Stupid. (until you realize)....While I understand the point of his article, and I don't think twitter is stupid, I do think it can be a waste of time.  I try to limit my media on  a daily basis and even so I  spend a lot of time on a device. On-line I read the New York Times, and the Albany Times Union.  I love to look at the Huffington Post headlines, they are the best and I look at what is on CNN and MSNBC.  I scroll through facebook and then I might try to extend my time on the couch by looking at twitter.  However, I know that my time would be better spent, at this point, by doing one of the activities for this class or something I have to do for work.  While I know that twitter can be informative and not a waste of time, I am not interested in being a full participant.  I don't feel that I have comparable offerings like say WebMd to be a full participant and frankly who cares what project I did at school or what my thoughts are on a certain topic?  Who cares about connecting with people around the world when you don't have any time to connect with people in your building?  As stated previously  I think my time could be better spent somewhere else and I always hear my mother's voice in my head, "God knows when you are wasting time." 

I read all of the materials on twitter posted for this class.  I liked the video about the attention span of people that has dwindled because of technology and I am concerned about that.  At Christmas, I told my two teenagers they couldn't bring their devices so that they would socialize with their cousins.  They didn't bring them but the cousins did, so there was limited socializing and their cousins chose their devices over sleigh riding. 

I think that people have to start making conscious choices about their use of technology.  I try to do that and twitter just doesn't make the grade for me.  For this assignment I looked at the activities for Veteran Tweeters and ended up signing up for TweetDeck.  Below is a shot of my page that has been tweet decked: