I tweet, but have only done so far a few weeks or so now, and still contemplate what it means for me.

In real life we project an image of ourselves that we believe is appropriate – especially at work, but often with friends, and sometimes even to loved ones (sadly). I don't mean that we all go around lying, but we do selectively share different information with different people. It's natural.

When I tweet I tend to openly tweet what comes to mind, without any 'disguise' (but I still apply caution and common sense, not to offend, breach confidentiality, etc.). In theory, anyone online can read my tweets. This creates a potential contrast, to 'real life' social circles/tribes, which I haven't yet fully got to grips with. The same goes for my embryonic blog (http://matthewbenson.wordpress.com/).

I interviewed @JohnKremer and @WarrenWhitlock a day apart. Both were singing the praises of Twitter. Of course Warren would, he wrote the book Twitter Revolution. It was John, early 60s in age, who inspired me to join. The first day or two I connected with @AlohaArleen who I met in person five days later when she came to the Big Island. To meet her and hear her talk about the power of influence, being authentic, and having fun was the confirmation I was looking for.

A good friend, @SoundAlchemy is mid-60s. I was pleasantly surprised that she jumped on Twitter a couple of days after hearing me talk about it. She's met the coolest people and her business – thus influence – is growing. All because of Twitter connections.

I especially like what you said about privacy. "You might as well intelligently feed the Google search engines with what you want people to know about you. You need to be smart about it, but you are in control." Thank you!!

"You are what you tweet."

Good for all of us to remember. Twitter is a mic connected to a very large amp.

@lawrencewilson

I've met so many fantastic people through FB/Twitter–writers and non-writers a like. Tweetdeck has really helped me get organized on Twitter too..so that's cool.

I've enjoyed everyone's comments..thanks for sharing!

For me, part of the challenge is that I don't have a good sales pitch regarding Twitter. When I feebly try to explain it, I get dead-pan expressions in return. "You just have to try it!" doesn't seem to suffice either!

I recently told my husband that "Twitter is my love language"! As another commenter mentioned, I love knowing what my husband is doing or listening to or thinking about when he's at work or just in the other room. And countless times my girlfriends and I been able to come to each other's rescue because of a Twitter post (e.g. "I really need some chocolate" or "I will not be receiving the Mom of the Day award."). It enhances my prayer life as I receive little reminders all day of what is happening around the world. In that sense, it has helped me become less self-centered, rather than more.

The lack of student participation would definitely be a problem. I'll think about ways to make it be a student-generated concept rather than a teacher-generated one. Also, most of my students already have online lives and they might balk at adding another one with their teacher.

My posts would be much more interesting if it were appropriate to talk about the stuff that I actually do.

http://www.twitter.com/TheTimothyFish

I have no objections to Twitter, it's just my personal choice not to bother with it at the moment. I have no objection to using my vacuum either, just not everyday, or all day.

That being said, the stick in the mud would be parents who absolutely refuse to allow their children to establish online presence. Honestly, that's probably the only category I've been uninterested in contradicting. I feel very uncomfortable telling parents they should be less restrictive, even if it's a restriction I wouldn't apply to my own children (someday, when they're older than 5 and 2).

I have used Facebook in a way similar to what's described above for my high school Sunday School and for a college-age class I taught. So far, it's been dismal. Interaction and involvement were probably about 5% of the participation we had in class.

I'd like to see it grow. As long as the Internet is saturated with bad information and our kids are out there on the Internet, we need to contribute to saturating it with good information! Displacement works!

That's why I comment on this blog. :)