Troubled Ties with Twitter

              I was really intrigued by the article titled “Tall Tales, Truth and My Twitter Diet.”  As an avid hater of Twitter, I can’t help but be fascinated by this use of social media.  Many people use Twitter to inform others about their lives, find news or keep in contact with their friends but this is a new idea. 

The author, Brian, uses Twitter to help himself along his weight lose journey.  He uses it rather as a tool to keep himself accountable for his diet.  He keeps track of what he eats and even posts about different times he struggles. He can use this social media to report his success to his followers and in return, they can provide their encouragement for him.  He said at first he struggled but the more followers he gained the more responsible he felt to keep with this diet. 

Through this Twitter diet, he was able to connect with people he didn’t even know.  One woman named Victoria said she had also lost 50 lbs. along with him.   He also inspired his brother to track his weight loss as well.  I was really impressed by how he was able to use this social media site for something other than it’s basic use.  I too feel inspired by this story to use Twitter in an unconventional way.  It opened my eyes a bit to the possibilities of Twitter and the multiple uses of the site.  I would be interested in finding more Twitter users that have taken advantage of the site in a similar way.  For once, I found some attractiveness to Twitter, #winning.