I’ll be the first to say that I didn’t get Twitter’s attraction to start with. TMI on Facebook was bad enough–why would I want to open up another technological avenue to read about people’s bowel movements? Honestly, the only reason I caved in and started a Twitter account was to help advertise this blog.
What I discovered on Twitter, however, is a community of scholars who are interesting and who share interesting thoughts, links, and information. Sure, I follow feeds that tweet about sports and other sundry things, but I check Twitter primarily to find out what my colleagues around the world think about academia, history, writing, and teaching. I’ve been inspired to write blog posts after reading what issues others are discussing, and I’ve been able to share information with faculty and students that I think might interest or benefit them. I’ve also been able to use it as a networking tool.
Twitter isn’t for everyone. The amount of information can be overwhelming, and filtering out what’s useful and what isn’t takes practice. If you want to give it a try, the recommendations I made in this post provide a good start.
My thanks to Katrina Gulliver for organizing this Twitterstorians blogarama.
Jacksonian America: Society, Personality, and Politics 
Couldn’t agree more – short of having a blog to promote, my experience of Twitter, including initial scepticism, has been just like yours. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised!