A Year on Twitter

A year ago today, I joined Twitter.  The following morning, I wrote this blog post about why I joined.  It's interesting to think back to that time in mid-February, when the world was about to change radically, but it hadn't yet.  I had a few weeks of "normal" Twitter, when we were all at work away from our homes, when children were in school buildings, when we got on planes without too much worry, when we ate meals together in homes or in restaurants, on and on I could go.

I can't foresee a time when I'll get all of my news from a social media platform, but I have gotten glimmers of what's to come because I'm on Twitter.  If not for Twitter, I might have arrived at last March's AWP and been surprised at how many sessions had been cancelled.  Because I checked my Twitter feed in the days leading up to the conference, I saw lots of presenters changing their minds and deciding not to come.  I wouldn't have been completely blindsided, as the AWP did send an e-mail about their decision to proceed with the conference, but frankly, by then it was a bit late, for people like me who were traveling from a distance on my own dime.  I'd have been paying for the hotel anyway, which is the largest expense.

Because I follow poets on the west coast, I saw shortages coming before they arrived on my coast.  I remember picking up a few extra bags of flour because some Seattle poets tweeted about how they could not find flour in any store.  I didn't pick up toilet paper because I had stocked up on a sale.  I continue to be surprised that flour returned to stores before toilet paper.

I had spent years hearing about how mean people were on Twitter, and I joined with some trepidation, worrying that I'd get a lot of vitriol.  But so far, I haven't.  Of course, I'm fairly careful about what I post--I haven't directly attacked Donald Trump, for example.  If there are people writing fiery responses to haiku, they haven't commented on my haiku-esque creations.

In fact, joining Twitter reminds me a bit of my early blogging years in 2008.  There, too, I was late to the party, and I spent some time feeling like I had found a sort of community and wishing I had joined earlier.

I know of at least one call for manuscripts that I wouldn't have seen any other way unless I had been on Twitter.  It led to the publication of a poem.  Has being on Twitter led to other opportunities?  I want to believe that it's still too early to know.

Let me also acknowledge the negative parts of adding another platform to my life:  it is distracting.  For all the good information and inspiration I get, I do get annoyed with yet another item that wants my attention.  I do get annoyed with myself for scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.  I do get weary of how mindful I have to be to avoid tumbling into that trap.

But that's true of any online site these days, if I'm being honest.  It's not a bad thing to be mindful about how I'm spending my time, particularly as I face more demands on that time and a dwindling amount of years left on this side of the grave.