Twitter is being abused. I’m not talking about spammers or celebrities, who we know use Twitter as a means to achieve self promotion. I am talking about people like you and me, with similar interests and expertise (education in this case), who are followed by many but only choose to follow a tiny proportion back.
My complaint, whine – whatever you want to call it – is that by not following back most of their followers, these people are, wittingly or unwittingly, taking advantage of their followers’ willingness to share, participate and converse, whilst putting in evidence their lack thereof.
What does it say about them if, in their Twitter bio, they extoll the virtues of sharing, learning and exchanging views on education but are only prepared to do so with a minority of educators, those whom they presumably deem worthy of their following?
What does it say about them when they ask for our help in Twitter but, by definition, are unable to help the very people who went out of their way to offer help? Think about it, you helped them gladly but, if they don’t follow you, they would have never picked up your request for help. You could still be waiting for help which would never come.
On occasion, when I have voiced my displeasure publicly, often on Twitter, it has been pointed out to me that I may be behaving selfishly by expecting to be followed back. However, in my view, it is they who do not follow back who are being selfish, because they take but seldom give.
I often wonder what makes an educator, of all people, think that it is OK to draw a line in the sand and say that’s it, no need to learn any more – there is nothing I can learn from him, him or her, which is effectively what happens when they opt to not follow back fellow educators.
This puzzles me because, the most amazing things I’ve learned in my life were unplanned. They were the things I didn’t set out to learn. The magic of discovery made me realise that, in order to start learning, you must first realise that you don’t know what you’re going to learn or, indeed, what you need to learn. In order to continue learning you must then realise that there is always plenty left to learn.
Ignorance, on the other hand, is the certainty that there is nothing left for you to learn.
I don’t claim to know the reasons for the sort of behaviour I decry in this post and, although I may appear to be claiming the moral high ground, I am only pointing out what might be construed from it.
There must be other reasons why people opt to not follow back those who might be considered their peers, arguably the very people from whom they can learn the most. These reasons have escaped me and I would very much appreciate it if you highlighted them to me in the comments below.
Photo by *Muhammad*
Post Script: This post has elicited a great response, both agreeing with and challenging my understanding of Twitter. I am very grateful for such wonderful contributions. I am slightly concerned, however, that, as the comments thread gets longer and longer, many of the points covered in the discussion below are beginning to be repeated, which is not surprising, given the number of comments a new reader needs to catch up with. Therefore, I would politely request that new comments are contrasted against existing ones to avoid any further repetition.
This post is tagged Social interaction, twitter
