How academics use Twitter

[Helix]

There's a lot of sneering about Twitter. Not sure why.

Academics have taken to Twitter in a big way. One of the most important aspects of it is the exchange of information; another is that its informality and scope makes it easier for researchers (particularly younger ones) to make contact with colleagues. I've seen cross-discipline collaborations set up over Twitter between researchers who hadn't met and who probably wouldn't have met otherwise because their main interests were different. I haven't noticed many cat photos, but I have seen some excellent photos of frogs, deep sea invertebrates and insects from the Amazonian jungle. No discussions of dinner. But if I wanted those, I could look in at the Holiday forum.

This article (from a tweeted link) looks at a handful of stats and makes some observations about the way academics use Twitter. (Apart from the reasons in the cartoon at the start.)

[*jj*]

Another interesting program.
At first I thought it "just" a crowd sourcing / citizen science thing, but no longer.


I LOVE the birds segment, in particular.

hear that academics

https://soundcloud.com/generation-anthr ... -of-nature

I SO wish Litterati had been around when we were studying the rubbish on local beaches in IYO