teradyneezeri | [Thoughtstream] More Social Networking Thoughts (Reply)

This may be something of a long read, but I apologize. I write thoughtstreams as I think of specific subjects, with little editing. They are a look into my actual thoughts, after all.

Something I have come to realize about Twitter is that, in all honesty, for someone like myself, it is still little more than a source of distraction, sometimes even a source of stress. That has never changed, and I seriously doubt that it will. This is primarily due to the same reason I have cited many times over: it is all-or-nothing when viewing the timeline. The filtering system varies between rudimentary and non-existent depending on which client you use, and even when you manage to filter quite a bit, it comes down to people who do not have the courtesy to use keywords—or hashtags—to label their tweets for those attempting to filter out something that they do not want to view. The latter problem of hashtags is exceptionally obvious within two sub-communities of Twitter: technology enthusiasts, and political discussion. I cannot count the number of times I have attempted to mute discussions about various subjects, such as Occupy Wallstreet and the various police killings, only to have them pushed into my face by other people who refuse to use proper tags. Then there is the fact that native Retweets*—the system which Twitter implemented for easily spreading a tweet from the original posting account—can bypass filters, which can make those filters ineffective rather quickly. Of course, I could easily leave, but there in lies another problem: many of the people I enjoy talking with spread their news solely on Twitter, and rarely use any other medium. There are no blogs to easily follow in many cases, as even RSS news feeds have been removed from Twitter's profiles. Today, I still prefer long-form blogging over the short-form Tweets you often see. I myself am far too verbose for the 140 character limit on that site**, and sometimes require two or more tweets to actually make my view clear for others. This poses a problem for some, as the ingrained mentality of Twitter*** is to react fast, and if someone says anything that could be taken the wrong way in one tweet, but is clarified in the very next, then people will often quote only the first in order to cause an uproar. This is too often seen as not only acceptable, but natural for the social network's culture. Every day that I see these incidents and am unable to filter them away, I feel more and more desire to leave it completely once again. The addictive nature has also left my focus in shambles, but that is for another time. Irregardless, I am on the verge of forcing myself into a proverbial hermit mode in order to work on my writing, and making sure that I am only awake at night, when there are very few distractions. There will be one exception, but I will cover that in another entry. I believe I have rambled about this topic long enough for now.

* - As an aside, I would also like to mention that I find the Retweet system to be even more disruptive and abusive than any advertisement that Facebook has placed on my timeline. ** - A fact that I am rather proud of, as to be quite honest, I find forcing short-form messages to be an insult. It sends the message that someone is not worth listening to if they do not keep their ideas brief. *** - This is solely from my experience with the network, and not an overarching idea of "This is the true face of Twitter."