Confessions of a Twitter Addict

My name is Claire and I love Twitter. It’s brilliant. It has pride of place in the ‘favourites’ folder on both my smartphone AND laptop. I have to admit that this wasn’t always the case. I honestly didn’t see the fuss when it first launched. Micro-blogging seemed quite dull to me, mainly because I have typing-based verbal diarrhoea. I came around, I fell in love with the little blue bird and embraced all that is perfect about Twitter as a social network. As with any addiction though, I’ve needed to set ground rules.

The Twitter Commandments According to Claire

Thou Shalt Not Abandon Google. Whenever I hear someone talking about a subject that I know nothing about, my instinct of course is to open my laptop and go researching. This is the digital age after all, who interacts and asks questions any more? Problem is, I don’t follow the whole ‘Google it!’ grain. I seem to have turned to Twitter as a platform to research things. After all, Google isn’t going to tell me what Boris Johnson is up to. Enquiring minds need to know what other people think to help them construct viewpoints, don’t they? Word of warning though; don’t search for ‘big spider’ on Twitter. I’m less mentally scarred from searching that one in Google.

Shit just got real on Twitter

Thou Shalt Not Retweet Everything Amusing. It’s an illness, retweeting. All it takes is a momentary lip twitch and suddenly I think my entire follower list should see exactly what has made me smile. Facebook is meant to be for that kind of self gratification. It only takes one rash moment of retweeting a daft comment about poo and suddenly you’re ‘that girl’ with an odd fascination for fecal matter.

Thou Shalt Not Obey All Trends. This one is more a personal gripe. Hashtags in particular don’t pay great attention to grammar conventions and anyone that knows me will happily tell you that a misplaced apostrophe can often bring on a two-day long break down. Tweeting with a trend isn’t everything. I need to tell myself this daily.

Thou Shalt Not Be Passive Aggressive. This is another one reserved for Facebook. I think my problem is finding it too easy to rant on Twitter because most of my FB friends think I’m actually quite contrary and nice. Twitter exposes me for the somewhat hateful and angry person I am. I must work on that.

Thou Shalt Not Stalk Celebrities. Famous people use Twitter. REAL famous people, dude. It suddenly makes our favourite public figures very accessible. It doesn’t seem quite so wonderful however when you find yourself blocked by a celebrity for tweeting at them every five minutes explaining why you love them.

Thou Shalt Not Forsake Twitter. Ignore Twitter for longer than 24 hours at your peril. One day in Twitter land is pretty much akin to studying lifestyle and entertainment for a month. Probably. Unless you want to find yourself behind the times and lost in a world where everyone knows who Twitter killed off yesterday. (#RIP hashtags are all too common, when in fact the subject is more often than not alive and kicking).

And finally, a word of warning before following me on Twitter.

I suffer from insomnia and coffee addiction. Make of that what you will but my tweets are 90% uninteresting and non-sensical. My retweets however? Now that shit’s a different story.

Cynicaustic_ on Twitter