As an adult who has dyslexia, I must say, I found it amusing when I discovered that there are dyslexia related resources on Twitter. Of all the social networking sites, Twitter is, by far, the most confusing to interpret for those of us with dyslexia. I realize, however, that the dyslexia resources on Twitter are not necessarily there for me, a person who has that particular learning disability. Most of these Twitter entities are trying to provide help for parents whose children have dyslexia.
I find Twitter to be confusing for many reasons. It took me a long time, and a lot of concentration, to eventually get used to how it works. You choose who you would like to follow on Twitter, and their tweets end being the first thing you see after you log in. I have followed a lot of people, which might not have been the smartest idea. The more people, the more complex it gets. The very nature of Twitter itself disables the little tricks I use to comprehend written information.
You are limited to 140 characters per tweet. People resort to using abbreviations in order to fit what they are trying to say into the allotted space. I have trouble deciphering abbreviations, especially when someone does not use a standard abbreviation, and instead uses their own, personal, form of shorthand. Nothing is in context with anything else, which is another problem. I tend to rely on context to understand what I am reading. I have had to learn how to track backwards from a tweet to what it was replying to, in order to try and catch the meaning. Often, I end up going to a person’s main Twitter page and reading that, hoping it will help me understand what on earth that tweet was about. One can add a link to anyplace on the internet directly into a tweet. Most of the time, that link gets shortened into a series of numbers and letters that do not make words, and are completely incomprehensible to me.
Here is my advice for teens and adults with dyslexia who are trying to use Twitter, and getting frustrated:
Don’t follow too many people. The less people you follow, the less tweets you have to unscramble. I really wish I knew that when I first started using Twitter.
If you cannot figure out what a link that someone has tweeted is connected to, do not click it. You may end up seeing something that you really didn’t want to see. Or, you may end up on a website full of words or numbers that, after you waste time processing it, was irrelevant or uninteresting. Following random links wastes both time and brain power.
Avoid using Twitter when you are tired, when you first arrive home from school, or after studying. I have learned from experience that the things I type into Twitter when I am tired or overloaded make no sense to other people. This sort of thing can make you look dumb, and lead to embarrassment. Or, it can be misunderstood by someone else, who tweets a response to it, that makes no sense to me later on, when I find it.
Image by Jeff Turner on Flickr