Interesting article  here on the Massachusetts to Oregon bike trip made by a Harvard ornithology professor this past summer. I couldn't find a journal anywhere, I think he only used Twitter.

It is interesting, but annoying to have him in my own back yard seeing brown creepers, even though I don’t remember ever seeing one.  I must be looking in all the wrong places.  And, of course, posting on Twitter as a bird man is perfect.

Would an ornithologist use anything social media other Twitter? Should there be a BeakBook? :)

And yes it is interesting to read an article with a concise overview of a long tour such as the one the Prof did.  Especially a tour completed in such interesting, (some would say challenging) times as these. It's great to see he accomplished what he set out to do and came away with such a positive view of people and the country.

If you only viewed the world or the country through Twitter  you'd have a very different view of things.  But, always good to see the journals of people touring during these times, and my own personal experiences out there, showing that the  majority of people out there are either (a) not the ones Tweeting out nasty stuff; or (b) have much more common sense/politeness/dignity in their face to face interactions than they do in anonymous sentences flung out on the Internet.

Warning, skewing old: I was Dad-splaining to my 30 year old daughter about how (b) has been true since the early days of the Internet, when the ASCII-only Usenet newsgroups were the only "social media" we had - and the similar trolling and controversies existed across the hundreds of groups.

I remember groups like rec.bicycles.misc and rec.bicycles.rides with big arguments about whether the emerging bike computer (mostly speedometer/odometer) handlebar devices should show speed as average across total time or only moving time, and other topics, that would occasionally branch off into craziness.