I faded away from Twitter a couple years ago. Looking back, I seem to tweet when I’m at conferences, when I’m on vacation, and when I publish a new blog post. That’s mostly it. I read Twitter even less often. It’s not that I don’t like the people, or that there aren’t worthwhile conversations going on. It’s just that the fire hose can be overwhelming, and it’s increasingly difficult to find content that’s relevant to me..

I used to compare Twitter to cable TV. If you have cable, then you can turn on the TV and have lots of options for what to watch. But sometimes, you turn the TV off and do something else. You don’t feel guilty about not watching ALL of the shows. And you certainly don’t try to watch all of the channels at the same time. Twitter is there. It’s an endless stream of content. So when you want to watch something, you turn on the TV.

Last month, we spent a week in a house with cable TV. It’s been a long time since we cut the cord, and there was some excitement around all of the TV options we suddenly had. That excitement faded quickly, though. After scrolling through the directory a few times, it was clear we weren’t missing much. We could watch cooking shows or celebrity gossip shows or reality TV. There were sports shows and talk shows and sports talk shows. We had plenty of opportunities to buy premium content, or to buy products from several channels selling things we don’t want or need. There were lots of channels showing reruns of shows that were horrible the first time around. Eventually, we ended up watching Jurassic Park III. Three times. And that’s not even one of the good Jurassic Park movies.

Maybe the same is true with Twitter. There’s plenty of political commentary, but nothing that’s actually going to convince people to change their opinions. There are lots of tweets extolling the virtues of teachers, and just as many from teachers who are compelled to remind us that they’re not working this month. There are the usual trite observations on testing and Common Core and how the government is ruining the schools. And there are links. Links to the latest tool, or the latest meme. Links to photos and videos. People sitting around tables at conferences. Bare feet in front of the beach or the pool. Kids doing crazy or adorable things. And that’s all fine. It’s entertaining, I guess. It’s certainly better than cable TV.

But to say this is the most valuable professional development experience I’ve ever had is going a bit far. Sure, we can connect to other people all over the world who share our goals, frustrations, challenges, and successes. We can work collaboratively to improve learning for thousands of kids. But given the choice, most of us would rather watch the video of the baby elephant taking a bath. I’m including myself here. I stopped writing this so I could go watch that video again.

Maybe curation is the key. I need to be able to filter the conversations so I only see the stuff that’s relevant for me. That’s hard to do, and I think it’s a big reason why I don’t engage more. I’ve moved past the “hey isn’t this cool; look at me talking to people all over the world” phase. I’m pretty much done with “we need to stop preparing our students for the industrial age” conversation, because learning in our schools really has changed in the last few years. I also don’t have much patience for the “common core / testing / NCLB / accountability is the worst thing to happen to public education in a generation” argument, which is entirely counterproductive and mostly false. And I’m so done with the whiny “look at how hard I work as a teacher / why don’t you treat me like a professional / is it summer yet?” conversations.

So these days, I’m back to using aggregators. My Twitter account feeds Flipboard and Paper.li. When I want to check in, I go there. It’s a mix of content from many sources. It gives me the best of the content that’s being shared among the people I follow. I still do occasionally follow new people and unfollow old ones. And once in a while, if I think I have something worth sharing, I’ll post.  But I’m not really engaging in Twitter directly very often, and I don’t really feel like I’m missing much.

Photo credit: Esther Vargas on Flickr.