social media frustration

If the technologies I use and value take steps to jeopardize the important connections and relationships cultivated and facilitated there, I will stop using and valuing those technologies. I'll entreat everyone for their email addresses and then otherwise eliminate my persistent online presence. 

My interest in and patience for being a digital migrant, of moving to a different online oasis every couple years, nears null. I want a measure of reliability and stability in where I am online. No more TOS changes, no more sudden and limiting archives, no more rumors or threats of being shuttered or sold. 

If this is too much to expect, then perhaps I don't belong on the internet.

3 responses
The ever-escalating crackdown on the Twitter ToS is saddening to me in general and, at moments, terrifying to me in particular. As I am moving toward a prospectus defense at the end of the month, I see potential obstacles to my own dissertation research.

Clearly, it's more than a little inconvenient on a personal level. But, part of the reason I'm even writing this dissertation topic is because I see the possibility for Twitter (microblogging) to heighten the sense of community in online classes. These kinds of changes will make data collection difficult. Fortunately for me, I have a large body of data already. Will it be enough? Will I have enough time to collect enough additional data? We'll see. OF course, it may not matter. These kind of changes make it less and less likely that academics will use the tool in their courses.

Thanks for your comment, @varhodes. You're right that it isn't just personal, that these changes imperil the possibility of using Twitter at all for academic, educational purposes. I think we share similar visions about the use of social media in the classroom and it's frustrating and unfortunate to see these tools limit their potential (and our research of that potential). I'm hoping for the best regarding your research, though I'm curious about how these most recent changes will frame that work.
This a most sobering post. I would like to talk about what Twitter is doing since I don't understand all the "Twitter speak" and I've just come to appreciate it just as it seems to change for the worse.