Editor’s Note 2/15

Story by Jacob Zlomke 

| Published Feb 15, 2011

Today, go delete your Facebook. You’ll be fine without it. Not because I want you to delete all your social networking and do without the shackles of the Internet. I don’t want that at all. I love social networking sites and the opportunities they can afford. That’s why you should delete your Facebook account and replace it with Twitter. A lot of you already “tweet,” I’m sure, but I was a little late getting on the Twitter train--my account was activated just a few weeks ago.

Twitter has become a new favorite of mine for a lot of reasons. First, there’s the fact that about 50 people (depending on your number of followers), some of whom you may not know, care even a little bit about what stupid little thought you have for the day. Talk about an ego-trip. I could get on Twitter and say “The Langoliers is the best movie of all time,” and people would read it! People would feel one way or another about it. That feels awesome!

Then there’s the fact that there is little to no Internet-stalking that you can do. One small picture, one about me and then whatever you feel like saying. Facebook can’t say the same thing. And that means that when you’re scanning your newsfeed, you aren’t bogged down by pictures and wallposts that you don’t care about. You only see tweets of the people you choose to follow.

And the people you choose to follow don’t have stupid things to say, generally. It’s a great way to get quick news, news from your favorite bands, actors, directors, authors, businesses and all.

Finally, Twitter has actually proven itself to be useful for things more than an update on your not-friends’ lives. The service has proven useful in emergencies and organizing events and rallies, and even more notably, it created a way for protesters to organize marches and spread news despite a state-run media in the Iranian, Tunisian and Egyptian protests.

It’s not all international or national either. I get my ASUN news on Twitter, and use it as a starting point for the Journal Star and the World Herald.

Twitter is useful. I’m not the first to say it--I’m not even in the same year as the first to say it. So the reason that I bring this up is because there doesn’t seem to be a large UNL presence on Twitter. I encourage you to sign up, if you haven’t. Maybe we’ll have an ASUN election protest where ASUN shuts down the Daily Nebraskan and we all have to communicate and get news by Twitter. You wouldn’t want to miss out on that.