In The Beginning -- March 2016

In the past couple of months I’ve had an article written about me for the IHC newsletter, had lunch with a freelance writer from LA, engaged in banter with an award winning documentary maker and been quoted in the Washington Post for an article about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). All because I spend too much time on my phone.

I joined Twitter, the social media site that restricts your musings to bursts of 140 characters, in the lead up to the 2014 election. I mainly followed politicians and political reporters (quickly ditching most of the politicians) and as a consequence, soon stopped watching the news. Every story of note was discussed, dissected and debated during the day. By the time it made it onto the evening news, I knew what angle the reporter was going to take and what bits they were leaving out.
From there, my Twitter habit has grown. I’ve found a large and diverse farming community, both in New Zealand and abroad, who are willing to share information and discuss any issue. We don’t always agree, but the debate is always entertaining.

I’ve made some great friends and fantastic contacts via Twitter. My daughter was recently accepted into Broadcasting School, and two prominent journalists were happy to spend time on the phone with her to coach her for the interview process. In her first week at Broadcasting, the guest lecturer was the aforementioned award winning documentary maker. Needless to say ,selfies of the two of them were tweeted at me directly after the lecture.

Two years ago at the Mid Canterbury Rugby Union’s Bobby Calf fundraising dinner, a marketing professor from Canterbury University gave a stunning speech on social media and rural mental health. I had only met Dr Ekant Veer online, but social media gave me the chance to get to know him and invite him to be our guest speaker.
Twitter has expanded my world greatly. A teacher from Upper Hutt has taught me to cook the prefect pork belly and make the most amazing beef patties, I’ve learned the nuances of parmesan from an Italian, been invited aurora hunting in Dunedin and requested a specific whisky for the next tasting at the Somerset Grocer!

I now think twice about telling my kids or workers to stop staring at their phones. I don’t know if they’re playing a game, sharing a joke with someone in another country, learning a new skill, sharing information or just making a new friend. But I do know one thing: they literally have the world available to them in the palm of their hand.