Tweet No More

 So the Twitter epidemic has consumed you. It has pulled you into a space of complete follow-dom. You try to tell yourself to stop, to put down the phone, but you can’t help yourself. You... must... type. Your fingers glide across the keyboard all by themselves as you think, “How do they know what to do?” It’s involuntary like some strange person has taken over your body and the next thing you know, your reading someone’s tweet that you would actually avoid in person. You have a problem, and it’s called Twitter.

An addiction is defined as, “To give oneself habitually or compulsively” or “To cause to become compulsively andpsychologically dependent on a habit-forming substance.” If you tweet one or more times a day under any circumstances life may throw at you, then you may have a serious problem. I myself have noticed a strange gravitational pull to the Twitter users follow button. It’s almost magical. How does it do that?

It has become so important to people nowadays to gain followers and like MySpace and Facebook, we tend to forget what these social networking sites are all about. Your number of followers does not reflect your social status. How many people do you follow that you actually want to sit down and talk to? What purpose do they serve to you in your life right now? I say stick to the people that you actually find interesting or care about. Or even the people you want to get to know. Life is too short to spread yourself too thin. If your following people because they are following you, just imagine being friends with someone you don’t like or can’t stand to be around. Like friends in the physical form...choose your connections wisely.

The most important thing to do upon noticing if you have a problem is to stop and back up. Just walk away for an hour and try to do something to take your mind off of it. Do something in real life that would be beneficial to you or someone that you care about. Have a real conversation, like face to face. I know, between texting and the Internet it seems so yesterday. It may make you anxious having to sit across from someone over coffee while they look at your face and you are forced to use another form of communication; that is, non-verbal communication. However, it’s important if you want to break the Twitter habit.

I’m not at all saying to abandon your Twitter application altogether or check yourself in for an addiction problem. What I’m saying is in light-hearted fun. But there are some of you out there who should really take it easy. You can follow just about anyone on Twitter, but why would you want to?