Or is that a little too much? :-)

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Hi Francescawolfe

Hmmmm. It would probably depend on your relation with the sup. However, I think what can eventually become an issue is if, as a result of this, she/he starts to follow your updates on FB/Twitter/G+ etc. .. . . So, unless you folks are that close that you two can laugh it out/or fight it out :p (as in you are absolutely sure that she/he will not become averse to something that you may say inadvertently in the foreseeable future. . . e.g. tough deadlines by sup or e.g. my sup is . . . and so on on), IMHO it might be preferable that you may want to keep your private life (or online ramblings.. .) private. If you think about it from her/his perspective, it can become humanly difficult at times to continue supervising a person objectively, if the person openly/vocally expresses dislike for h im/er (or e.g. if the sup feels something the student said might have been irresponsible on part of the student since in h is/er point of view, it may affect his career/personal life etc. etc.).

This is just my opinion. Would definitely want to know what others think on this. Hope this helps.
:-)
Cheers

It depends. If they use Twitter primarily as a media outlet to advertise their research, then I would say it is both positive and perhaps even necessary. But really, if they use it to talk about private or personal things, then I would say it may cause more harm than good, particularly if you aren't that close to them. If you have a very close relationship then it might be okay, but sometimes PhD students can feel quite close to their supervisors in the beginnings of their PhD then feel unsettled later when strong professional boundaries appear (as they have to, whether you want them to or not). I'm not sure if "cool" should really be the main consideration: would you have followed your undergraduate supervisors? If you've worked outside academia, would you have followed your managers?

Twitter!? I'm still trying to get me head around the Facebook!