Tuesday, May 20, 2014

I Like Twitter, But...

1. I don't like the jerks who use offensive, derogatory terms (like the C-word) to refer to women and think that they're funny. Reading their Tweets makes me wish I could tell a professional wrestler that those losers flirted with his girlfriend.

2. I don't like the people who follow and then immediately unfollow when I don't follow back or retweet them. That tells me that they're not interested in reading my Tweets; they just want more followers. I'd like more followers too, but for me, Twitter is about writing and reading interesting Tweets.

3. I don't like the photos that make me think that people are advertising some kind of semi-nudist colony. The phrase "less is more" does not apply to clothing, at least not in my opinion. I don't think the fact that I don't want to see people pose with hardly any clothes on makes me a prude, unless the person posing is Channing Tatum.

4. I don't like the Tweets that have nothing but links in them; occasionally I'll include a link, but not in every single Tweet. Links always make me wary. I'm afraid they'll come with a virus or somehow find a way to access my webcam and then will be able to tape videos of me throwing M&Ms at my TV every time the Duggars or the Sister Wives come on (am I the only one who finds them really annoying and conceited?).

5. I don't like it when some people post thirty retweets in a row (I'm not exaggerating). I retweet a lot of people, but I still include my own Tweets. Like I said, part of the point of Twitter is writing interesting Tweets.

6. I don't like reading the same inspirational quotes again and again, though I will admit to a few "reruns" of my own. If those people can't figure out what to Tweet, they should just take a break from Tweeting; that's what I do.

7. I followed several of those Twitter feeds that have inspirational quotes at first, but sometimes it's hard to be inspired by them after a day that included getting screamed at by drivers who get mad because their all-important texting sessions were interrupted by pedestrians and having my dissertation criticized (again!) by my advisor.

I really do like Twitter, and I'd like to keep Tweeting for now. But sometimes it does get on my nerves, which is when I know it's time to log off.

What about you? Is there anything that bugs you about Twitter, Facebook, or any of the other social networking sites?

16 comments:

  1. I agree about the language and linkage. That's probably why I'm not on their much anymore.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Emily,
      I don't know why those guys don't see that offensive language does not make them sound funny or attractive. I do know that several of them are hoping to make connections with women on Twitter, yet their hateful descriptions of women make those jerks very unappealing.

      Delete
  2. Amen sista! Very good reasons not to like it but I'm sure there are just a few to like it enough not to deactivate your account. I don't twitter. I Facebook. And for me, I found that it is way more personal with other writers, family, and friends. And the best part...our settings can be as private as we want them to be! Hope you can find a happy median and maybe I'll see you on Facebook some day? I won't defriend you :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Tammy,
      Sorry about the late response! I'm out of town right now and don't have easy access to a computer. Anyway, I'm not on Facebook, partly because I'm not very photogenic and I don't like most of the pictures of myself.
      I haven't deactivated my Twitter account yet, though I haven't been using it as often lately. I still like Tweeting occasionally, though.

      Delete
  3. I haven't really figured out any of the social networks. Most of my feed is authors pimping their stuff...and most of what I tweet is pimping stuff of mine or other authors. I don't think it's very effective and I want to have a more interesting, meaningful Twitter presence but just don't spend enough time social networking to figure it out.

    Once in a while I get social on Twitter and then I enjoy it, and recently it was superfun to stalk Survivor tweets. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Nicki,
      Sorry about my late response! I don't have daily access to a computer right now. I like Tweeting while watching TV shows too; once a creator of a TV show that I liked responded to one of my Tweets. Other than blogger and Twitter, though, I'm not on any of the other social networks either.

      Delete
  4. Facebook bugs me no end because as soon as you customise it they change everything around again. Plus I find people post way too often and I can't get my feed organised, so I'd have to be checking it three times an hour if I ever wanted to keep up with everything - and most of it's not really worth that. I only ever joined because family members started using it to share photos instead of emailing photos the way people used to in the good old days, ha ha.
    I love Twitter! I set up lists a few months after I joined, and that has been a life saver because I made one big mistake - I followed everyone back who'd followed me, at the start, because I thought it was the polite thing to do. So I had a feed full of nonsense. Then I made my lists, and now I never check my main feed, but only my main list. BUT. Apparently you're only allowed to follow 2000 people before Twitter blocks you from following more (unless you have thousands of followers yourself, which I don't).
    So now I have to weed through my "junk" list and unfollow a huge pile of people and it'll probably take me an hour or so to do that and I keep putting it off. But it means I can't follow a few of the people I've come across in the last few weeks whom I'm genuinely interested in. Argh!
    I need an intern! (I have many tasks for an intern...)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Deniz,
      I've heard a lot of people have started to dislike Facebook; I wonder if it'll ever go out of style like MySpace did. I didn't know you could only follow 2000 people on Twitter. There are a lot of people I'd like to follow, but I think it'd be hard to keep up with thousands of people. Maybe you could start another Twitter account to follow the other people you're interested in. At first I followed back all of my followers too, but then I realized that some of them immediately unfollowed when I didn't retweet them (or when I didn't retweet them every day). That told me that they weren't interested in my Tweets; they just wanted to promote their own accounts. That bothered me, so I unfollowed them too.

      Delete
    2. Hi Deniz,
      Sorry about my late response, by the way!

      Delete
  5. On Twitter, a lot of people have learned the best way to get more followers is to follow people themselves...but that doesn't earn anyone QUALITY followers. The truly best way is to find people who share your interests, follow them, and reply to their tweets/retweet them (in moderation). Just having 1,000 followers means nothing...but these people don't really realize that. It's all about their #s.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Stephanie,
      I'm so sorry about my late response; I was out of town and didn't have daily access to a computer. I agree with your advice about following people who share my interests; at first I followed people who Tweeted about stuff that I had no interest in or knew nothing about, which wasn't fun for me. I've also seen other people who promise to follow back as long as other people follow them; that tells me that it's just about the numbers, like you said.

      Delete
  6. I agree with some of your gripes about Twitter. When someone follows me, I check their follower count. If they follow fewer than follow them, unless they're really famous, I don't follow back. They usually drop me, as I suspected would happen. if they have a bunch of promos in a row, I also don't follow them. This has minimized my frustration. But some fall through the cracks. If they get really bad or inappropriate, I unfollow them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Theresa,
      Too many promos make me less likely to follow too, because I'd rather read people's observations about their lives or jokes; too many promos is like watching nothing but commercials on TV. Sometimes people do make inappropriate comments that really bother me, like when people make jokes about that missing plane. If they had relatives on that plane, they wouldn't be joking; it bothers me that they're so insensitive to what happened.

      Delete
  7. Yeah I get annoyed when I go to twitter and only see links. Everywhere.

    Sometimes it feels like I'm the only human on my timeline.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Misha,
      All those links make me wary about spam; I'm afraid of getting a virus or something if I click on those links. I know what you mean about being the only human on your timeline; I wish everyone would just use Twitter to write and express themselves.

      Delete