I have recently undergone a re-evaluation of my internet identity. Almost as important (arguably more important) as one’s real life identity, internet identity is exciting in its malleability. Two years ago, as I was ushered around the Emerson College campus, my tour guide informed us that soon we’d be able to access the Emerson’s WiFi as far into the Common as the gazebo. I was stoked. I envisioned myself lying in the grass, my computer in front of me, attaching the latest short story I’d written in an email and sending it out to all of the literary magazines eager to publish me. At that point in time, this, in addition to the occasional Facebook visit, was the extent of my internet usage. This fact, and past, dark experiences of having my time wasted, contributed to my initial resistance to Twitter. Even now, after my resistance has waned a bit meaning I have an account that I update more than once every six months), the little byline that pops up when you search “Twitter” on Google, “What are you doing right now?”  makes me uneasy. At first, I didn’t see the point. “Twitter is nothing more than Facebook updates” is a sentence that I’ve said more times than I can count. Generally annoyed by information that is useless to me and unnecessarily shared, I saw Twitter as just another way for my generation to destroy whatever respect we’ve gained.

What turned it around? Curiosity. What else? I initially signed up when my sister, on the verge of having a baby, and my brother-in-law insisted that I stay updated on the progress of her labor via Twitter. I guess you could say the miracle of birth got my foot in the door, but it was the consistent emails (“So-and-so is now following you on Twitter!”) that finally nudged me to update and follow my friends’ accounts. I also have a little to owe to the blog post by one of my fellow ideaLaunch-ers, Brindey Weber, and her blogpost, which sparked my interest even more by revealing the practical uses of the site. I tend to stubbornly boycott things that the masses support (i.e. Twilight), so realizing that Twitter can be used as a launching pad to other things rather than solely for the point of tweeting/Facebook-status-updates opened my eyes (and online heart) to new possibilities. One of my first return tweets (a term that still makes me cringe because it sounds like it’s referencing drug use) was something along the lines of “Melanie Yarbrough forgot Twitter existed.” I stick by my initial argument that the majority of tweeters (including myself, most times) are sharing less-than-necessary information. And though I haven’t quite reached the point of text messaging my tweets to the website, I couldn't go much longer resisting something even God uses. That will not be the case if he ever reads Twilight.