Blog 2: 4/9/24

My Experience With Twitter So Far

Hi guys! This week, I started using Twitter for my animal research. Here is everything I've accomplished so far and how I feel about my experience so far.

I got a little excited when following people on Twitter, I mainly chose people that have or are actively conducting animal research at a University. Being a university student, I thought that I would be able to connect more with people who have done research at these places since I know how university works, and will perhaps be able to find a similar researcher/laboratory at my university! So far, I've only followed people who label their researcher as general animal research, since I'm not too sure about what specific research I want to do, which I will figure it in the upcoming weeks.

As for my own Twitter, I chose to focus on species of canidae. I found articles from National Geographic that discuss interesting facts about wolves and well-known habits of domesticated dogs. I tried to post articles I found were not only educational but also interesting, so that I could reach a bigger audience.

After writing my own post, I scrolled through my peers' posts. One post in particular that I thought was very well-done was Roma Vashi's post. I liked how they asked a question before linking their article. It had a similar effect to asking a rhetorical question, which engaged me to click on their post.

I was particularly surprised by an article that stated foxes could potentially "hold they key to understanding human nature." I never considered the role that foxes, or any animal in that case, could play in understanding human nature. I was not really saddened by any of the articles, I just thought all of them were fascinating in their own way.

What I gained from this week's Twitter experience was actually some inspiration for my own research. I came across three different articles about wolves, and I specifically want to incorporate an article that discussed the symbolism/importance of wolves in different cultures. I learned a lot about the symbolism of wolves in elementary school, but one day we just never touched on the subject of wolves ever again. I would like to revive this topic into my research and find a connection to the symbolism of wolves to some bigger phenomena in animal research.

Summary

All in all, I had a great first experience using Twitter for my animal research journey. All of my peers had such interesting finds, and I can't wait to read more in the future!