By Rajae McClinek’16
Staff Writer

Twitter is beneficial to the Peddie community. It allows Peddie students to share personal beliefs, morals and values. The Tweets are frequently constructed with a considerable amount of sarcasm, wittiness, and hashtags for emphasis, which makes it a popular social media website.

On Twitter, people can convey their honest opinions of current events freely. Of course, everyone is expected to respect other students’ difference in opinions, with an inquisitive instead of a combative nature towards one another. Though some Tweets may seem aggressive, each person has the ability to follow, unfollow, or block whoever they may choose on Twitter. Also, Twitter interactions can encourage actual interactions in life. Favoring someone’s Tweet will not necessarily result in best friends, but surely a retweet can almost always guarantee at least a “Hey” and a smile from that person while walking to classes.

Currently, Twitter is the most prominent social network at Peddie. Although Facebook is ranked the number one social networking site in January 2014, Twitter seems to be the most trending social network for teens and celebrities. As our lives have become less reality based, Twitter emerges as one of the main sources of communication between this generation’s teens. The winner of ‘The Poetry Out Loud’ contest in 2014, Kavita Oza’14, recited a poem that centered on the growing “disarticulation” amongst the world. Could this be a byproduct of Twitter’s limitless influence? Possibly, as hashtags appear not only in our Tweets but chapel talks and everyday dialect.

On the surface, Twitter may appear to be another source of procrastination from the endless work of Peddie’s rigorous academic courses, or simply a way for students to complain. It is true that being involved in social media sometimes distracts students from the more important obligations of our lives and we should learn to effectively manage our time, but sometimes we simply need that five or 15 minute break from life to relax. Tweets often resonate with each other. For example, many students expressed their joy over the recent snow day on Twitter. Even though they weren’t physically in each other’s presence to have a proper celebration, Twitter not only spread the word of the snow day, but in the midst of the clever humor it helped them to connect with each other.

All in all, in less than 140 characters, Twitter gives everyone a platform to voice how they feel. Anyone is provided the opportunity to say what they want, with this privilege accompanies the responsibility to be accountable for one’s actions and of course your words. The “favorites” and “retweets” one receives symbolize others’ appreciation of what one says in that a few humorous words can possibly result in a enduring friendship. Twitter units the Peddie community as more people can relate to each other. Twitter in itself has not only united the Peddie community in many ways but has undeniably become a part of it.

Even the Peddie News has a Twitter! Follow @ThePeddieNews. Thank you and remember to Tweet responsibly!