Monday, September 8, 2014

Six Social Media Accounts to Keep You Inspired and Informed

People knock Facebook and Twitter, and they'll keep doing it until those formats are obsolete (How long do we have?  Two more years?) but I'm here to remind you that there's still some good in the world wide web.  Hopefully, you've gone through your accounts and removed or at least hid all the friends and pages that leave you with an icky feeling.  Your next step is to add in some kick ass material that will keep you informed and inspired.  Here are some of the accounts that make it worth it for me:

A picture and a little story about people walking on the street.  It is almost always powerful and personal and completely lovely.  Kind of like microstorytelling.  Right now, the person behind HONY is traveling with the UN in places in Africa and Eastern Europe, taking pictures and talking to people in conflict there.  While this can be painful to read, it is incredibly important.  It reminds me of my blessed and wonderful life, and puts real faces to the stories on the news.


This is a website geared towards kids and teens, and I follow them on Facebook.  They daily share an inspirational female and always include background information and resources if you'd like to learn  more.  I've learned a lot from their historical facts about powerful women, and they also suggest books for ages 3-18 for kids on topics like self esteem, advocating for yourself and others, female engineers and scientists, and other empowering subjects. They've also shared articles about how to build self esteem, positive body image, and mutual respect in even the youngest children, which has really helped solidify my teaching and parenting language. 



"Amy Poehler's Smart Girls is all about the encouragement to be yourself in a world that needs to be encouraged about that."  Shares from this account include uplifting stories about people helping each other, cool art projects, and people doing interesting things.  There are features on "Smart Girls" who are changing the world with the things that make them special.  It's like a voice popping up every day to say "Keep it up, you're part of a club of ladies who are all refusing to laugh at rape jokes and insisting that red carpet interviewers ask about more than dress designers.  You're the smart girl at this party!"



This is like getting that clip from Mr. Rogers where you get a factory view of something being made popping up in your Twitter feed every few days.  It's a newer account with only 37 tweets so far, but I'm impressed with the variety and the quality of the videos.



This is specific to my geographic location, but I encourage you to seek out someone tweeting in the largest city near you and get personal information about whats happening in your own backyard.  The man behind this Twitter account tweets about traffic issues, festivals and street fairs, special menus at local bars, the symbolic reasons behind the changing colorful lights on our Prudential building, and much more.  I live 30 miles from Boston, but I love knowing whats happening and following along with news stories.  I also get great ideas for day trips.  Find someone who tweets about an area near you and follow along- even if you live in the suburbs, you're going to look very knowledgeable when you hang out with cool city friends.



I discovered this magazine when I was stocking up on travel reading material, and I fell in love.  It is literally mental floss- I'm talking amazing facts, obscure vocabulary words, digging deep into random topics like how are crossword puzzles made, and information about real life murder mysteries.  My favorite articles are 11 Amazing Thank You Notes From Famous People and Back to the Future Co-Creator Bob Gale Explains How Marty and Doc Became Friends.  There is a TON more where that came from.  You should probably just follow them.

There's my go-to list for inspiration and smarts.  Anything I missed?  What are your internet must haves?

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1 Comments:

At September 15, 2014 at 1:33 PM , Anonymous stephanie, sandpaper and glue said...

I <3 HONY :)

 

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