Rediscovering Twitter

I've been a Twitter user, both personally and professionally, for a while now. However, I had been feeling like I still didn't really "get" the platform totally. Taking a social and digital media course this year has provided me with some of the most insightful information on using Twitter strategically.

I thought I'd share some tips from my class!

1) Twitter is best when you use it regularly. I know it's easy to tweet something one day, and then not sign back into your account for a week or two - but it's hard to build that coveted community when you haven't been engaging with your networks. My goal is to engage with at least a few people on Twitter each day.

2) Be authentic. Follow what you like! Post and retweet and favourite things that you personally find interesting. This will allow you to connect with people who are excited by the same things as you.

3) Have brand awareness. Some people think the idea of a "personal brand" is corny, but it's actually quite useful. Potential employers can easily look you up on Twitter, so why not use that to your advantage? Think about what message you want to get across on Twitter and how your profile, pictures, tagline, and posts can help you achieve that.

4) Consider cleaning up your Twitter profile. Have any tweets or pictures posted that may not reflect favourably on you in the future? Maybe it's time to take them down. This can easily be done by visiting tweetdelete.net.

5) Have fun with Twitter! It's not supposed to be drag or stress you out.

Happy tweeting!

Finding Joy in the Small Things

This has been one of the busiest summers, for me and a lot of people. People always talk about the "lazy days of summer", but for me, July and August have been pretty packed and now it's nearly September.

At the beginning of the summer, I had a whole list of things I wanted to accomplish, and even a few trips I wanted to take. With one thing and another, I didn't get around to doing everything I wanted to. at the same time, it's been a productive and fulfilling few months.

Although I didn't get around to doing everything I wanted, there have been a lot of happy moments this summer. The more I think about it, the things that have given me the greatest joy over these past few months have been, somewhat surprisingly, the small things.

Here's a list of some of the things that stood out from my summer:

-the feeling of jumping into a cold, but refreshing lake at a friend's cottage
-sipping a cup of tea on my balcony in the morning before work
-watching dogs, kids, and families play together on the beach
-reading a book in bed on a drizzly day
-taking the time to write more often, even once or twice a week
-feeling the days get cooler and thinking about autumn on its way

What kind of little things give you joy?

What Ever Happened to Curiosity?

I'm curious - what makes you curious?

A recent Toronto Star article about waning curiosity in the age of iPads, smartphones, and constant access to Google has got me thinking about this essential human trait.

George Leslie, author of the book Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends on It, argues that Google "is curiosity's best friend and worst enemy at the same time". When getting information is just too easy, such as typing a word or query into the Google search box and getting an immediate answer, our natural human curiosity can dampen. Perhaps we click on the Wikipedia page, scan the opening paragraph, and then walk away with an immediate but superficial answer.

Great thinkers in the past like Leonardo Da Vinci, Charles Darwin, or Benjamin Franklin were men of great curiosity, but without the existence of Google in their time, they would have had to go to much more extreme lengths to find the answers to their questions - it was definitely not as easy as searching something on the web!

Leslie is not totally opposed to Google and its capabilities though - he asserts that the search engine does have its upsides. For naturally curious people, he says,  Google can enhance their thirst for knowledge - but, if you're naturally lazy, Google can make you lazier.

I think that there are other ways to ignite our curiosity and search for knowledge - methods that don't even involve the use of the internet. What about fiction? Nature? Sports? Art?

So, what makes YOU curious?

The Importance of Quiet

I recently spent a few days in Ontario’s cottage country with some friends. It was freezing cold, we had rain on and off, and there were gusts of winds that almost left me shipwrecked in the middle of the lake when I went out for a kayak paddle. It definitely wasn’t the week of fun in the sun that we were expecting – but surprisingly, what I enjoyed best about the trip was the quiet, and the escape it provided from city life. But what I appreciated most was the fact that we had no internet connection.

The terrible weather on our vacation forced us to remain inside the small cabin. As a result, I spent my time doing something I rarely have the time or attentiveness for: reading (and not an e-reader, an ACTUAL book). In our age of digital overload, it’s easy to spend the majority of your waking hours staring at a screen of some sort.

Contemporary studies have suggested that overexposure to digital screens is causing attention deficit problems and diminishing our interpersonal and intellectual abilities. Researchers and scientists are now promoting the importance of quiet time, and the absence of screens, when possible, to allow for important, but increasingly neglected brain functions such as daydreaming and creative thinking.

I think that the biggest reward of this drizzly, chilly week up north was the lack of buzzes, beeps, pop-ups, and alerts that we have become accustomed to receiving on our various devices. Instead, I got the time read, think, and reflect for a few days.

The first thing I did when I got back home? Checked my email.

Shiny New Blog Post!

Mygapyear's Summer Newsletter is available now - complete with travel tips all the way from Kentucky to Italy, plus a parent's account of her son's gap year experience Tanzania and South America!
Click here to read the latest edition of mygapyear's newsletter!

Don't Peak in High School

With another school year over, it can be a reflective time of year (especially if you’re graduating). You think back on all of the accomplishments, the letdowns, the highs and the lows.  It’s easy to feel a wide array of emotions as well – everything from relief to joy to pride, to sadness and disappointment and everything in between. It can be overwhelming.

What can make this transition time so difficult is the pressure – there are so many heightened expectations during the high school years to make the most of the supposedly best years of your life.

I think that this kind of pressurized, expectation-building thinking needs to stop. As someone who didn’t particularly enjoy high school, I remember leaving grade 12 wondering if I should have tried harder to have that indefinable “time of my life” that everyone always talked about.

That’s not to say that I didn’t have highs in secondary school, but there were lows, too.  High school was a memorable time in its own way, but it’s foolish to amp up that period of your life when you still have a lot of living ahead of you! Maybe I want my 30s, or my 40s, or even my 80s to be the best decades of my life – and they easily could be! Your happiness is not reserved for any single era of your life.

So…if you have finished another year of school or have graduated and are feeling confused or disappointed in any way – don’t let it get to you. Good things in life happen in every decade, not just when you’re young. The best times are yet to come!

Why You Might Want to Pick Up a Pen More Often...

As an experiment, I'm handwriting today's bog post in a notebook first instead of typing it up on my laptop.

A recent New York Times article presented the idea that writing by hand, rather than on a keyboard, may benefit learning in both children and adults.

In school, children acquire reading skills more quickly as writing skills are introduced. Additionally, they are able to remember things better through and become more creative through writing things down.

In another study, a psychologist demonstrated that printing, cursive writing, and keyboard typing were all linked with different parts and patterns in the brain. However, when children wrote out text by hand, they had larger vocabularies and were able to generate more ideas.

According to the article, the benefits of handwriting are seen in adults, too. We can commit new concepts and ideas to memory with greater ability when we write by hand. Furthermore, in real-world classroom studies, two psychologists showed that handwriting allows students to better process the learning content and then "reframe" it. This reframing allows for a reflective process that may be lost in keyboard typing.

Even a skeptic of the study still acknowledges the significance of writing: "With handwriting, the very act of putting it down forces you to focus on what's important. Maybe it helps you think better."

Do you prefer typing on a keyboard, or writing by hand? Experiment for yourself! It's never too late to start a journal or a new piece of writing - and you might even learn something!

You can read the full NY Times article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0