Tag Archives: tweets

Freedom of speech?

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Tweet from Elon Musk yesterday.

The big news on Thursday was Elon Musk offering to buy Twitter at a 38% premium. What will happen?

Twitter employees were given a day off to rest last week because of the stress of learning Musk bought 9.2% of their company and was offered a seat on the board. Imagine how they felt Thursday!

During the brief time the world thought Musk was going to be on the board of Twitter, he tweeted some funny stuff including this:

Musk said in a Ted Talk yesterday that he doesn’t have an economic motive but believes in free speech. I read that people at Babylon Bee, a satirical site, were contacted by Musk before he purchased shares. He asked if they had been banned and why.

Personally I’m against censorship and banning people unless they are breaking the law. I’m all for free speech.

I think Musk is one of those polarizing figures who people love or love to hate. I have taken the temperature of my immediate family to attest to this fact.

What are your thoughts? Do you think Twitter should be owned by Musk? What are your thoughts about censorship and free speech? Do you use social media? If so, which ones?

Another funny tweet during Elon’s one or two days of being named to the BOD.

Tweeting to the choir

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Of all the social media platforms, I spend more time on Twitter than others. I rarely use Facebook. I use Instagram occasionally. But I look at Twitter every day. It’s my way of keeping up with current events. By seeing what’s “trending,” I learn about earthquakes, elections and breaking news. I also look up how my sports teams are doing and can find out almost instantly if they are winning.

I follow a few writers and other people I like on Twitter. I never comment or get involved in the many Twitter feed fights. My WordPress shares my blog posts automatically to Twitter and I get a few readers that way. When I wrote for SwimSwam weekly, I’d retweet my stories they tweeted as well as other ones that caught my interest — like my daughter’s college swim team results.

In a short snippet from Investor Business Daily (IBD) on their To The Point page, under the Trends column I read:

Tweeting to the Converted

Most Americans do not use Twitter, and of those who do, a minority of active users produce nearly all the tweets, a new study finds. A quarter of U.S. adults use Twitter, and among users, the most active 25% produced 97% of all tweets, a study from Pew Research Center finds, confirming similar findings in 2019. Among highly active users, most tweets are either retweets (49% of the total) or replies (33%), with original tweets just 14% of all posts…

IBD A2 To The Point, Week of November 22, 2021

I would have added a link, but this newspaper is one of our old-fashioned paper types that lands on our driveway.

My takeaway from the article above is that people who take Twitter as a pulse of the nation shouldn’t. It’s a tiny slice of the pie and most likely doesn’t reflect anything more than the opinion of a very vocal few.

What is your favorite social media platform? Do you use Twitter to follow news, sports or current events or are you hands off?

Tweet of Oct. 21 Elizabeth Wickham blog post. What's healthy and tastes good.
For my plant-based friends, this post offered a tasty recipe. This is what my tweets from my blog look like.

To Thine Own Self Be True — Or Facing the Sad Truth that Kids Grow Up

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My baby girl's first Christmas photo.

My baby girl’s first Christmas photo made it on the cover of the monthly parenting magazine.

My daughter is coming home for Christmas break tomorrow. I’m excited and a little anxious. Her last final is today for her first semester of college out of state. I’ll admit that I stalk her on Facebook and Twitter. She doesn’t look like the same little girl who left for college in August. When I talk to her on the phone, she doesn’t sound the same, either.

I remember going to orientation with her last July at the University of Utah. There was one talk I especially liked, “Supporting your College Student” presented by Dr. Kari Ellingson, Associate Vice President, Student Development.

Ellingson said that during the freshman year our kids learn to become themselves. They will be grieving and letting go of high school friendships, but will build new and deeper ones. A main developmental issue is finding their identity. Their core stays the same, which has been developing over the past 18 years. But, how they express themselves changes. They may try on new identities by copying new friends to see how it fits or feels.

You may say to yourself, and hopefully not to your child, “Who the hell is this?” Then you meet their new friend, and say to yourself, “Oh, now I see who this is!” Which makes me wonder — who has the ear cartilage piercings (and now my daughter asked about getting one!) Why does she tweet that she wants to dye her gorgeous red hair brown? Is this why she’s best friends with a couple teammates one week and then inseparable with a new one the following week?

Thanks to Ellison, I can see she’s quite normal. I may not like it. But, she’s trying out new things to find out who she is. It’s going to be my job to not make a big deal out of the little things. I can’t keep her my little girl forever.

My daughter and teammates at JOs a while back.

My daughter and teammates at 2006 Junior Olympics.

This is what I have to say about finding out who you are: “To thine own self be true.” Don’t worry about what other people think. Do what you know is right. Be your own person. I’m afraid she’s working too hard to fit in. By being herself, she’ll fit in where she needs to be. 

I am standing back and watching my little girl grow and develop into an independent grown-up woman. It’s not easy.

You can read more about the highlights of Ellison’s talk here and I wrote more about “To thine own self be true” in Three Things to Tell Your Daughter on Graduation Night.

Sailing in Santa Barbara.

Sailing in Santa Barbara.