social networking
Twitter - my new best friend
Twitter has been a global phenomenon for a while now. Until last year I had no idea, what it was or why I was hearing about Tweets everywhere. I wasn't inspired to give it a go thinking it can't be much different to the Face Book Status concept. That was until one day around this time last year I became a little too curious - and now I need therapy, really I do!
Hello everyone. My name is @crip_tic and I'm a Twitter holic.
To find out how I enjoyed a party for the first time in my life using Twitter - continue to the next blog post!
Twitter v. Facebook Status.
Twitter is definitely my social network of choice where I have made real friends and work contacts. I do a lot of work from home and TweetDeck (my free Twitter mission control software for reading and sending Tweets) is on all day on my desktop and on my iPhone when I'm away from my desk. I am only Twitter free when I'm teaching or asleep.
My hundreds of 'friends' on Facebook are largely people who are 'used' for the sake of playing games rather than actually forming friendships and some of the posts are quite frankly annoying, self pitying or self indulgent congratulatory messages about how clever they are, how drunk they were or how much Jesus loves them. Either that or people share their misery in good old Country and Western style 'Dogs dead, divorce papers came through, teenage daughter is pregnant and worst of all the price of cider has gone up'. Much more of that and I'd have to add depression to my list of ailments.
Interestingly, I have some friends with bi-polar who refuse to get involved with Facebook so perhaps they had been tipped off beforehand!! On the other hand, some of the status messages do make me wonder if it's just one big peer support group FOR people with varying mental health problems and it could be argued that due to the therapeutic and supportive benefits of Facebook - perhaps it should be funded by the NHS?
What's Twitter all about and is it accessible to disabled people?
The moment I created my account and typed my first message into the 'what's happening' box I was hooked. Essentially that is the start and end of all that Tweeting is about - these tiny glimpses into life, lovingly known as Tweets. People share what they are doing, where they are, photographs, drawings, links, what they like/don't like, what they think or talk about a TV programme they are watching ... you get the idea.
The concept is amazingly simple. No annoying adverts, no games - just a list of Tweets. You tell the world what you're doing in less than 140 characters. Others will be doing the same in real-time rather like instant messages. If you follow people, you will see their Tweets appear in your time-line. Likewise, if they follow you, they will see your Tweets.
Accessible Twitter
People can Tweet in so many different ways and one of my favourites is by drawing pictures. It's not that I can't type or read, but more because I use a graphics tablet instead of a mouse and like to be more creative with communicating my message (and sometimes it's a lot funnier because I can't draw for toffee!) On my desktop I use Wacom Minis which is free tablet software for Wacom tablets. It allows you to run an application called Draw Tweet on either a Mac or PC. It's really easy to use and could suit someone who prefers to communicate for whatever reason by drawing with some basic pens and colours. My pictures are saved in TwitPic which is a free photograph and drawing website linked to my Twitter account.
Using photographs to share what you are doing is another none-text way of getting your message across and something I use quite a bit. Video is also an option allowing BSL users to tweet signed messages to each other. Visually impaired people (amongst millions of sighted people) might consider audio tweets as an option. For people who prefer text input, there is a website which makes tweets easier for visually impaired people and a range of desktop software and phone applications to try out. On TweetDeck for example you can alter the colours of text against the background which might be useful if you're dyslexic but doesn't allow for changes in font size within the application or a change in the font itself.
To find out more about how I enjoyed a party for the first time in my life using Twitter - continue to the next blog post!
