In Real Life

Some questions I need to ask myself in order to structure my thesis chapter about my experience with Twitter. I have read the research of Edward Mischaud and consider the questions he asked some selected users in a questionaire. I will ask myself the same questions or similar questions;

How many users I follow do I know in real life?

At this moment I know 59 out of the 99 friends I follow today (June 4th). Four are virtual people (@buurvrouw, @TheMime, @NichtjeChelsey and @juffrouwjannie), two are cats (@stickiepoes and @timmedepim) and one is myself (@twesis). By knowing I mean I have met them in real lige at least once, like a Twitter meeting. Most of them are friends and classmates. The users I do not know are interesting or inspiring  people or organisations or they have something to do with my research subjects like @hashtags, @applications, @adium, @teamtwalala, @spezify or @virtueelp. I also follow people who tweet information for a project only, like @leprafeed.

Would I shout in a crowded room what I tweet?

Probably not, but this comparison is very difficult as I think Twitter cannot easyly be compared with the real world. I already think Twitter is not really a remediation of anything I know in daily life. On Twitter I do not make a sharp difference between public and private, or research and personal, although many tweets can be categorized as such. When I reply to a tweet of a friend I keep in mind that all my followers and other people can read my reply, but I do not pay too much attention to that. Every user can reply back and take part in a conversation or discussion and I can even get to know new users this way. However, when people in real life confront me with my tweets I can get annoyed because I think what is part of the Twitter sphere should stay inside the Twitter sphere.

Why did I decided not to do any interviews? What were my reasons?

During my research period I was asked several times if I was going to do any interviews with Twitter users and I refused to do them. I feel the need to explain why. I wanted to experience Twitter and experience multiple applications. I was fascinated by following and be followed. I feel that if I interview other users about their experiences I am writing a book instead of a thesis as I already have a lot of material to work with. I participated on Twitter and joined multiple discussions and followed trends. I blogged about my journey and appreciated the input from others on my blog and on Twitter through @replies and direct messages.

How can I classify my postings/tweets or to what extent was I answering ‘what are you doing?’

Just like Mischaud found out early in his research, my postings also did not reply to the main question of Twitter “what are you doing?” but were instead more “random personal statements”.[1] Sometimes I was really stating what I was doing but I also chatted a lot about anything. At this moment (June 4th) I have written and posted more than 1700 tweets and I have back-ups and will try to classify them through keywords. I made my own questions which I answered on twitter, like ‘what am I thinking?’, ‘how do I feel today?’ or I wrote about what I did, answering the question ‘what did I do today?’.

Do I feel Twitter is more part of a high culture or more common culture, more about politics or chat?

To answer a question like this I have hundreds of tweets that I have read over the last couple of months and most are related to personal topics. This is also due to the people I follow. Some users follow politicians so what they read is less personal and more professional. But I feel most users chat with friends about their lives, about basic information. My classmates and I write about New media events. Friends and I write about coffee or if Twitter is offline. According to TwitterFriends 60% of my tweets are @replies, although I do not know if they take all my tweets in consideration.

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[1] Mischaud, Edward. ‘Twitter: Expressions of the Whole Self. An Investigation into User Appropriation of a Web-Based Communications Platform.’ London: Media@lse, 2007: 18.