How…you… are you on Twitter?

I get a number of new Twitter follower notifications filtered into my ‘Twitter’ folder in my Gmail daily. I appreciate them all – well, the ones that aren’t immediately obviously spam.

I got an interesting follower the other day that got me to thinking. This Twitter user had her name followed by the letters PhD.

For those of you who don’t know, a ‘Ph.D’ is apparently the highest degree you can earn in a University. A Ph.D can be anything other than a doctorate in Law, medicine or theology. Ph.D stands for Philosophiae Doctor (it’s Latin, literally translated; Doctor of Philosophy).

Would you put it in your Twitter name though? Would you announce to the World that you are “TwitterUserPHD”?

To me it seems somewhat…stuck up. Yes, I realize that people work very hard on their doctorates and other certifications. I realize they are quite an attainment and cost a lot of money.

Would you introduce yourself to someone on the street at a party or an event “Hi, I’m Joe Schmoe PhD”?  I know I wouldn’t and I’d expect my friends to beat me if I did.

I think of Twitter as a social setting – you should be very…you on Twitter. You should approach others as you would in the real world. You should engage how you would in the real world, moreso maybe.

When I posed a question on this topic to my Twitter followers I got an interesting mix of responses (naturally, some of them are amusing). Thanks to all who replied to me. (oh and follow me on Twitter)