Six Months on Twitter

Six months ago, I started a Twitter account, which meant that I'm looking at tweets much more than I ever did before.  Let me think about what I've learned so far:

--Lots of writers who once had blogs that I read are active on Twitter.  I wonder if they miss the longer form.  I am glad to see them, and it does make me wish I had started a Twitter account earlier. 

--As the months have gone by, I wonder if I need to go back and filter who I am following.  When I first started on Twitter, I knew the writer of every tweet.  I use that verb loosely.  Now I see tweets from people I have never met.

--I am astonished at how many tweets are just people retweeting.  As with Facebook, I wish that I could tell which kinds of posts/tweets I want to see.  With Facebook, I just want to see people's posts about their lives or emotions.  I rarely want the reading suggestions, and I almost never click on the videos that people recommend.  With Twitter, I'd like to just see original tweets.  I'm also less interested in seeing snippets of people's poetry.  Sigh.

--I do see more calls for submissions on Twitter than I do on Facebook.  I haven't gotten more acceptances since joining Twitter.

--It's not as hard to craft a tweet as I thought it would be.  Maybe I'm not as wordy as I thought (we shall now pause for the laughter of anyone who has ever read my e-mails).

--In fact, crafting a tweet reminds me of working in forms that allow very few lines or syllables.  It's good to weigh every word.  It's good to remember how many different ways there are to craft a sentence.

--The Twitter universe isn't as mean as I feared it would be, but that might say more about the people I'm following than the larger Twitterverse.  The people I'm following on Twitter seem civilized for the most part.

--I am intrigued by how my world view may be shifting by keeping up with tweets.  Would I have realized the fierce arguments about the possibility of canceling the AWP conference without Twitter?  Doubtful.  If I hadn't seen a variety of tweets, I might have thought about quarantine differently.  I read a lot about people who were sent home--still drawing a paycheck or supporting themselves somehow, but not working.  I read about people who had lots of free time.  I bought a lot of flour, anticipating time to bake.  I was not sent home, and my workload has increased since March.  Sigh.

--I don't see as many people posting pictures of the craft projects, their remodeling projects, visual art.  Maybe I need to add some of those types of people to the list of people I follow.  Maybe a lot of that happens on Instagram, which seems fairly impossible to access without a smart phone.

--When I first started on Twitter, for the first several weeks, I didn't get the ads that I'm seeing now.  Did it just take those ads awhile to find me?  Is it tied to certain people I'm following?

--I find myself slightly less interested in Twitter now than I was during March.  Is it because of what people are tweeting?  Because I've gotten used to (and a bit fed up with) this new platform?