Tech Friday: Evaluating my newsfeed & “waste of time” tweeting
Posted By RichC on April 23, 2021
I’ve used Twitter as my interactive Newsfeed for almost 15 years now and it has been a struggle to decide if it is worth it or not? BUT, like most people who start
the addictive habit of using social networks and reading “feeds” (newsworthy or not), it is a difficult habit to stop.
For the “newsy” component, most of what I follow is national business and political news with a smattering of locally fed stories having to do with weather, sports or community. I once enjoyed connecting with Taylor’s teachers and our local schools, but that seems like a long time ago.
The other part part of the feed is the social aspect. Twitter has remained my connection to a few of my hobby 
friends from aviation and car guys … to photography and technology .. as well as science and miscellaneous jibber-jabber and humor. This is probably the area I could improve on and whittle down who I connected with … and definitely who’s tweets notify me on my phone. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy the back and forth connections and virtual friendships, but besides “social” and learning things in areas that interest me, I do spend an excessive amount of time glancing at my iPhone when it chirps, then reading and often replying (thankfully they are short tweet,s but still I’m shocked how much I use it!)
Prior to social networks, we … or I … connected with others through forums/clubs (Bulletin Board Services – BBS in the early days), Yahoo and Google group lists, directly by email or commenting on individual blogs. Now most of this has moved to social networks like Facebook (I still have an account), Instagram, TikToc, and a bunch of others that I avoid like the plague. I’ve tried to discipline myself to stick with ONLY Twitter since it is my connection to news and people with my interests. Using even Twitter (as well as email, text messaging) as well as keeping up with my daily blog is bad enough … I don’t need any more.
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