I quickly learned that this thing was much better than Facebook. Since having Twitter my status updates have dropped by around 50%. I sometimes don’t even log in at all. For a start, with Twitter you follow people who are interesting, you don’t have to put up with that guy you went to school with who you barely spoke to then let alone now.
Twitter is full of interesting people who tell you all sorts of intriguing things. Facebook is full of dull people who tell you what they’re having for tea. I personally feel Facebook is on its way down now, especially now Google+ has opened up to everyone. It’s now changed its layout once again to incorporate its Twitter-like features that work about as well as cabbage in a cake. Twitter is worth logging into, Facebook just isn’t; though I’m not exactly deactivating my account as I do have a core base of friends on there who I do talk to regularly.
That being said though, when it comes to social networks, especially Twitter, I am still learning; it took me a good seven months to realise what #FF meant for a start! It took me a while to learn how to find people as well. That’s one of the things I like most about Twitter: the ability to find ordinary people who share your interests or experiences.
I have Crohn’s Disease and my support network is fairly small, so Twitter has become a great place for me to find others who also suffer with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Simply type the word Crohn’s into the search box and you’ll find several people who have it. That’s what I love about social networking the most. I suppose it differs from person to person how they use them.
The one thing I am yet to learn though is the etiquette you have to adopt when using Twitter…
I’ve got a few followers who have IBD, which is great because now I feel like I’m in a little support network across the internet. Now, when people follow me I will always follow them back out of courtesy; providing that we have a similar interest. Anyone who has IBD will always be followed back.
Sometimes though I’ll find someone who has IBD (either through a recommendation or a retweet), I’ll follow them but they don’t follow me back. I don’t really mind that to be honest, and I still continue to follow them. Some will only follow back if you mention them in a tweet or reply to one of their own tweets. That got me thinking that perhaps that’s how it’s supposed to work. At the moment I’m sticking to my automatic follow-back policy though.
There are some people who are in my following list however, who I’ve directly mentioned or given answers to their questions yet have still not followed me back. Some quite literally ignore me. These people follow some of my other Twitter buddies, but they don’t seem to want to follow me. At this point I wonder: am I supposed to unfollow them now?
Speaking of unfollowing, I don’t know if it’s vanity or insecurity but whatever it is I always feel a little sad when someone unfollows me. I get a tad depressed when people delete me from Facebook, as most people do, but that’s generally made a little easier by the fact you didn’t like them and they were just sat decaying in the hide-list anyway.
When people unfollow me on Twitter I feel worse because I worry that my tweets have become like dull greasy dishwater to them. Am I really that uninteresting that my followers decide to simply unfollow me?
Only the other day I received a new follower, I clicked on her and found that she wasn’t a spambot or a porn star, in fact she was a fellow Crohnie so naturally I followed back. About a week passed and I noticed that she’d unfollowed me which confused me immensely. I find it particularly strange when people follow, only to unfollow a week later. I wonder what I did wrong, I hardly tweeted in the last week, maybe I’m not tweeting enough! I even had one that followed me and unflawed me within an hour! I just don't get it.
That’s the only thing I prefer about Facebook: you know where you stand. You send somebody a friend request and they either decide to add you or ignore you. Sure, they may delete you in time, but you’re not likely to care; usually the only thing you share in common is the way you breathe in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide.
When it happens on Twitter it’s like a slap to the face. But what can you do? I’ve kept following those who’ve unfollowed me, whether that’s the right thing to do according to the Twitter book on etiquette I‘m not quite sure…
Like I say, I’m still learning.
No comments:
Post a Comment