I took the plunge

The neatly stapled hand out was passed around. The pressure was on. I gripped my seat, leaned over my keyboard, peered down at the alphabetical buttons glaring up at me. It was like I was deciding to jump off a cliff. Would I click enter and take the plunge?

I had to. And so I clicked.

It’s official –I am now a Tweeter. Shudder.

I don’t know why I’m so reluctant to join these sites, but for some reason they freak me out. I felt the same way about joining Facebook and (cringe) MySpace, although I no longer use the latter, and in fact I didn’t even sign up for either one of them myself. A friend did it for me, forcing me to submerge myself into our modern world where people are pressured to publicly open themselves up to a world of strangers.

I later felt the same way when I was instructed to start a blog…and now it’s Twitter.

But now that I have all of them, is it really so bad?

Not really. Just time consuming and problematic when you have a journalism assignment due the next day at 8:00 a.m. and all you can think about is a new blog idea or who may have just sent you a Facebook message and now I’ll be thinking what’s going down in the world of Tweets. They’re actually all exciting resources and fun ways to get to know others and shout out your own opinions. Not to mention they’re extremely critical resources for future communicators like myself because you get to show off what you can do.

So ultimately I am excited to have been instructed to join Twitter. Just like I was secretly excited a friend had created a Facebook page for me. And just like I was secretly excited I would have to create a blog.

So if I enjoy blogging and Facebook messaging and tweeting then why am I so reluctant to admit that I enjoy doing these things? Why is it that I sometimes hate our world of instant messaging? Why do I cringe at the very thought? I have nothing to lose, right?