#Twitter

Have you had an account on Twitter? If so, have you left for ‘greener’ pastures on Tumblr, Mastadon, Hive, etc.? I have been on Twitter for quite some time and still have an active account.

While I understand why some people, including some prominent genealogists, have chosen to leave Twitter, I’m staying for now. I’m staying because I have become frustrated trying to find alternatives that meet my needs.

For the most part, my use of Twitter or even Facebook does not involve me discussing some (boring) aspect of my daily life. Instead, I use social media to share and seek out information.

For example, this blog is configured to share new posts to my Twitter account. Because of the recent issues with Twitter, I added sharing to a Facebook page and my Tumblr account. Based on my stats, I know that the posts to Twitter are affective. Thus, I’d like to keep Twitter — but if most genealogists leave Twitter, then I won’t have an audience for those tweets.

Like tweets from my blog, a lot of my other tweets are generated from another source. I use Feedly to read various blogs. I often share some of the genealogy blog posts to Twitter. This also allows me to use my tweets to go back and find a blog post when I want to reread the post or share it with someone else.

As is likely true of most genealogists who have had a Twitter account, I follow other genealogists. This is one method to keep up with genealogy news. These tweets have made me aware of events and/or projects. For example, it was thru Twitter that I became aware of the Honor Roll Project to transcribe monuments honoring our veterans.

However, my use of Twitter is not limited to genealogy. With an undergrad degree in science and a master’s degree in library science, and over 40 years in public education, I follow a wide variety of people on Twitter. Over the years, thru Twitter I have

• followed tweets by reporters and members of the Kansas House as they debated school finance in the middle of the night
• followed the #KSwx hashtag to find about storms impacting my area of Kansas
• followed emergency management as they dealt with large wildfires in Kansas
• followed virologists around the world as they discussed the impact of the swine flu
• followed the unfolding news out of China and Dr. Li Wenliang as a new virus (think Sars-Cov2) began impacting the citizens of China
• followed virologists around the world as they discus the impact of Covid and LongCovid
• followed a variety of journalists who challenge me to look at topics from different points of view

So, as Twitter threatened to implode, I started looking at alternatives. While some genealogists are leaving Twitter for Mastadon, my impression of Mastadon is that the various servers creates groups of users with similar interests or silos. While that works for genealogy, it makes it difficult for me to follow my variety of interests.

A recent post by a prominent voice about Covid asked the medical community about a network for Health.

Because I have not only followed this Twitter user for several years but learn from him with almost every post he makes, I responded to his post pointing out my needs.

When the hashtag, #RIPTwitter was trending, I decided to look at my options. Those options included the following:

• created an account on Mastadon
• verified I had an account on Tumblr
• added virology blogs to my Feedly account
• configured Google News to add some of the news sources I follow on Twitter
• updated the automatic sharing options on my blog

While I don’t like the increase in harassment on Twitter, I still am an active user. I’m still a Twitter user because it is very frustrating trying to find alternatives to meet all of my perceived information needs.