Why I Dislike Twitter

Twitter. It's practically everywhere nowadays. It seems rare for me to be able to visit a web site without seeing something to do with Twitter on the page, even if it's as simple as a “Share this via Twitter” button. Well, that actually happens less now, since I have various web browser extensions installed specifically to remove all “sharing” buttons (and similarly, Facebook's “Like” buttons—those are among the dumbest things I've ever seen. I couldn't care less how many Facebook users liked the article I'm reading) and iframes that display Twitter feeds. But I still see loads of “Follow Me/Us on Twitter” links and/or banners everywhere, as I don't think there will ever be a way to suppress those. And then there's signs in stores, telling me I really should follow them on Twitter.

But why do I dislike Twitter so much? Well the short answer is I personally think it's lame. I rarely see any compelling Twitter content that makes me really want to sign up. From what I've seen, content on Twitter can be summed up in the following categories:

Self Promotion
This is mainly messages that are posted informing followers of new content on the account owner's web site, whether it be a small personal blog, a large news site or something in between. For me, such messages are pointless. If it's a web site whose new content I enjoy seeing, I already either visit the site on a regular basis and see the updates anyway, or I subscribe to the site's RSS feed. Or both. For several web sites I frequent, their Twitter feeds are absolutely nothing more than headlines and links to the articles. There is nothing unique there that doesn't already exist on their web sites. I can't understand why anyone would even want to follow them on Twitter.

Also, I really don't think Twitter is even the best way to do that. There already is another piece of software technology in place that's specifically designed for the purpose of alerting people to new web content, and I mentioned it in the previous paragraph—RSS feeds. Most people don't even have to do anything special to add an RSS feed to their site, either. Popular blogging sites create one automatically, and most other decent Content Management Systems for larger web sites also have that functionality built in. And they work far better than Twitter for that purpose, too, since most RSS readers also track whether or not you've read an article/post so you don't have to remember.

Advertising also falls into this category. I don't mind receiving occasional emails from stores, but the last thing I want are daily reminders that I really need a new TV, or that authors I've never heard of have a new book coming out.

One-Sided Conversations
Another significant amount of content I've seen on Twitter is people having conversations with each other. But, when viewing people's Twitter feeds, I only saw one side of the conversation. In order to see the whole conversation, I had to also load the page for the other person involved and find the messages from the same time period and figure out how the two match up on my own.

Yes, I know it shouldn't matter what the conversation is since it wasn't directed at me, but for me, ignorance is bliss. By that, I mean that if I don't even know the conversation exists, all is fine and dandy. But as soon as you show me half of it, I'm compelled to dig around and find the missing half. For example, let's say someone posts the message, “@so-and-so Awesome!” Well, now my curiosity has been piqued. What, exactly did so-and-so say that was so awesome? And I cannot rest until I find the answer.

Plus, if you're going to have a conversation with someone, isn't that what text messaging, email, Instant Messaging and phone calls are for?

Totally Useless Information
“This sandwich sure is delicious.”
“Well, it's time to watch the game.”
“I'm off to the store! Gotta buy some more milk.”
“I just knocked over a plant and have a big mess to clean up now.”
“I am at Walmart.”

I really don't think I need to elaborate on this one. A study done in August 2009 determined that a whopping 40.55% of Twitter content was “Pointless Babble.”

Stuff I Actually Care About
Whether they be witty one-liners or pieces of information that I'm genuinely interested in hearing about, these would be the reason I might consider following people on Twitter. Sadly, the contents of this category is in the minority. The signal-to-noise ratio is so bad, I would be spending far more time looking at messages that were a waste of time just to weed out the occasional interesting thing.

Lets say I end up following 10 people/companies/organizations, who collectively posted an average of 4 messages each per day. That's 40 per day. 40 messages, most of which I really wouldn't even care about. But considering most feeds I've looked at average far more than 4 per day, that would just end up being too much. On one “Is there anything useful on Twitter” hunt, I stumbled across a Twitter feed for someone I used to know and, I kid you not, he averages 40 a day, only a fraction of which are remotely of interest to me. I couldn't care less about the 30+ half-conversations, updates on his current physical location, saying he's the mayor of a particular store (whatever that's supposed to mean...?), etc.

But, to each his own. I may think Twitter is lame, but apparently there's about 175 million people who disagree. I know there are things I enjoy that others would think are lame (such as spending over 10 hours between the last two evenings playing Oblivion, for example) so I'm not judging others. I just think it would be awesome if I could go for a whole week without hearing the words Twitter, tweet or Facebook...