Since I've started using Twitter, I have found a whole new way of receiving my news. As I think about it, Twitter is a blend of news completely different from Facebook where I only hear about people in my life, or news websites- It's a liason linking me to all of them. As I scroll through what seems like endless tweets, I can follow everyone from my father to USAID, Kim Kardashian to the New York Times. Even The Pope has a Twitter! Because of this, people can now send messages to their followers in real-time rather than going through multiple steps of publicists and scheduled news timings for simple messages.
Right now since I'm focused on getting an internship with the State Department, I have started following their tweets to see what's going on around the world and what they're doing to participate in world issues. It completely blows my mind how closely connected just a follow can be- For example, this morning I found out about a 7.2 magnitude earthquake in a province of Turkey that I had once visited through tweets from the State Department, where I could then click on links leading me to more information on what exactly happened. They keep a live update by sending messages whenever their representatives have something relevant to say to the public. Another example of this is when Osama Bin Laden had been captured, the message had gotten out on Twitter faster than Obama's address to the nation. Talk about revolutionary!
The door to the ease of access of information has been opened through the internet, and it seems that Twitter is a major moving force. To keep up digitally, I'm following future employers closely and have read of opportunities through their tweets. I also have a part-time writing job where I have seen the benefits of tweeting a new article. Because I can add tags, it has made starting out less strenuous by having articles under the tags that I post with them. By actively engaging in Twitter, I can see how keeping up digitally is important. The way information is transferred is on hyper-speed, especially when people like me are preparing to become active working citizens. I can see that it is a revolution in the digital age and I'm excited to see how it evolves!
I think Twitter is so interesting because of how unique of a social media platform it has become. It's amazing to see how such large amounts of information can be sent out using 140 characters or less. I don't use it very often because I have to keep up with some many other forms of communication, but I think it's great for those who take advantage of it. Twitter does more than transmit information; it reveals that celebrities are just like you and me, it helps comedians develop a different kind of humor, and it helps users learn to present and interpret information in a much more succinct manner. I wouldn't be surprised to see Twitter shaping society in different ways.
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