Random Twitter Stuff

It has only recently occurred to me that I may be breaking some kind of social rule when I offer information to people having a separate conversation. Perhaps I am supposed to pretend that I have not been listening to what they've been saying to each other! 

Me too, I love this!

There's something rather beautiful about a blind elephant listening to Debussy!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i1qQOGCyRbY

via Twitter 

Oh my word! This is exactly the sort of thing I'd do: 

@youngvulgarian 

There's a French man trying to explain the tu/vous thing to someone at the table next to me in the café and I just had to interrupt to show them this, which I'm delighted to say actually helped:

Sometimes we feel pressurised to socialise with work colleagues in ways that don't suit us. Here's an interesting article on the subject: 

Adam Grant
When Mandatory Fun Isn't Fun (Quiet Revolution)
www.quietrev.com/.../
via @susancain Twitter

Yes, you're right, she is good too. 

@agonyautie is good, she is pretty eccentric and has bright blue hair.

Or maybe this! 

I'd just say "lime green" and leave it at that.

Tweet by @autismage Cos 

"I am a perfectly normal #autistic person. I could argue that neurotypical people are defined by abnormal traits & deficits, from my #autistic perspective. But I prefer the concept that we are all normal, just different. Accepting difference doesn't scare me at all."

Professor Penny Cooper @ProfPennyC tweeted:

"Autism and jurors and the ‘profound’ effect of letting them know...Here’s an important new study by Maras et al (2018) Mock Juror Perceptions of Credibility and Culpability in an Autistic Defendant @KatieMaras1"

Conclusion:

The present study aimed to examine whether disclosure of a defendant’s ASD impacted mock-juror judgements of credibility and culpability. Findings suggest that the information provided to jurors about an autistic defendant can have a profound
effect on their judgements of his likeability, honesty, blameworthiness, guilt and sentencing. With the provision of an ASD diagnosis label and further information, the defendant’s ASD was predominantly seen as the uncontrollable cause of his behaviour, compounded by the situation he was in. This has important implications not only for the courts, but also for other areas such as employment and social situations where the disclosure of an individual’s ASD diagnosis may impact others’ perceptions of them. While the present findings suggest that revealing a diagnosis of ASD could be beneficial, existing literature suggests autistic individuals are fearful of doing this. However, the present findings indicate that autistic individuals who do not reveal their disorder may be perceived more negatively, while an ASD label motivates compassion, understanding and mitigates responsibility. These findings have significant implications for disclosure and should be an encouragement to the ASD community.

Link to full article:

www.researchgate.net/.../

I'm on Twitter under a pseudonym and heavily disguised! My Facebook is invisible to anyone except immediate family. To be honest I'd rather not be on it but it's the only way I see what my children are doing. 

Tweeting is a risky business... a few years ago a well-known writer from the USA was visiting the University I worked at. I sent an innocent tweet saying how excited we were and a few hours later I got a message from his agent threatening legal action (I'd muddled him up with someone with a similar name!). 

I'm very cautious these days about what I tweet! 

I'm all over it, in tiny pieces of colour!

Oh, yes - I can see that positive aspect of it.  On Facebook, I belonged to several Aspie and autism groups.  I found some of them a little bit juvenile, though.  People saying things like 'Asperger's seems really cool.  How do I go about getting diagnosed with it?'  Er... well... try being born with it.  It helps!

I've stopped using Facebook now.  Not only because I was spending too much time on it, and this forum is far more helpful for me.  But also because that 'unfriending' and 'blocking' incident with my work colleague has made me so ill.  It's like I said about the 'safe spaces' section in that article.  Things have moved on too much now.  I no longer feel 'safe' on social media.  And whilst I might be able to cope with being unfriended by someone I've never met, nor am ever likely to meet, I can't cope with it when it's someone I have to work with every day.  I need people to be straight with me, and mixed messages like that just do my head in.

On the other hand, of course, as someone who writes, I know I would benefit from being on Twitter.  Many agents are as keen to acknowledge your 'web presence' as they are to read the work you're sending them.  If they see you have a following, it makes you much more interesting to them.

seriously that one is priceless

27 degrees N/NE of strange to you :-P

I absolutely love this tweet:

Something I find weird is when I tell people I'm autistic and they say "oh where abouts on the spectrum are you?" Like they want some co-ordinates of my location?  #ActuallyAutistic

@rypheros 

Thanks Hugh, that sounds really interesting - I'll take a look. 

I don't use Twitter any more. For the last year or two I've been using Mastodon to get on the Fediverse, which is a smaller, distributed social network with a much more supportive community. There seem to be a lot of autistic people on there - search #actuallyautistic to find some.

It's a refuge for social outgroups, so there's a high proportion of LGBT people on there, a lot of wild young misfits. But anything offensive or triggering - even selfies with eye contact - gets hidden behind a content warning, so you don't have to engage.

https://joinmastodon.org/ if you're interested.

I use Twitter to keep up to date with interests. Using the hashtag #ActuallyAutistic has led me to some useful autism information. It's addictive though, and I spend far too much time on it! x