Who Tweets? Who use the Twitter app? Who read tweets as SMS?
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We cite tweets quite often now.
Wondering who (among us TNCR participants) do any of the following:- Send out tweets
- “Follow” others on Twitter
- Read tweets using the Twitter app
- Read tweets as SMS
The original Twitter was very restrictive: 140 character limit because it’s meant to be replicated over SMS (legacy cell phone text messaging system) that has a 160 character limit, Twitter “reserved” 20 bytes for its own use.
Once people moved off legacy SMS, once phones acquired the capability to concatenate fragmented SMS messages, the 160 character limit ceased to be functional. Twitter recognized that and doubled its message size to 280 characters. Even that is silly because there is no good reason any modern app cannot handle much larger (even arbitrarily large) message sizes ...
... wait, I was going rant a bit on why Twitter still impose a pretty small per message character limit if most people have moved onto the app or modern phone software that can deal with much larger message sizes. Then I realize that the small message is still needed to protected Twitter!s own message replication infrastructure — Twitter makes and sends billions of copies of messages each day, “small message size” limit is still needed to keep the load manageable at this scale.
Still, even though Twitter doubled the message size limit, there is a publication claiming that the average tweet shortened in length anyway, from 34 characters per tweet on average with 9% of tweets hitting the 140 character limit (when Twitter had 140 character limit) to 33 characters per tweet on average with only 1% of tweets hitting the original 140 characters limit (after Twitter raised the limit to 280 character).
Be it by preference, through the establishment of conventions, or skill, people write even shorter tweets now anyway.
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The point of the character limit today is to force people to compress their messages. Sometimes it is annoying, but there is also something valuable in the idea that you must reduce your message to its essence to post it.
I personally do send tweets occasionally, but not more than once or twice per month.
I'd never use the Twitter app, though. Too intrusive. The web interface is completely fine.
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I follow a lot of people on twitter but don’t tweet at all. (My FB presence is also limited but I do occasionally post and I’ll like things that catch my eye. )
Lots of flame wars on twitter. But I usually don’t read reactions. Just the original tweet of the one I’m following.
I follow mostly: journalists, health professionals, some military aviation and naval stuff. Very little “personal” following. I don’t have any desire tho peek into the boring lives of anyone.
I use the twitter app on phone and iPad.
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The one and only time I ventured into Twitter was a couple of months ago. I got the notion to add my voice to the comments following one of Trump's crackbrained rants. (Don't ask, I was bored.) It was a mess and I soon gave up. That's the only time I've ever fooled with it.
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Don't tweet. Rarely read any tweets, unless they are here or contained in an opinion column.
Tweet is a vapid wasteland of intellectual stupidity with an occasional oasis of original thought and brilliance. It ain't worth wading through the sand to get to the water.
“Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”
Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton
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Don't tweet. Rarely read any tweets, unless they are here or contained in an opinion column.
Tweet is a vapid wasteland of intellectual stupidity with an occasional oasis of original thought and brilliance. It ain't worth wading through the sand to get to the water.
@Jolly said in Who Tweets? Who use the Twitter app? Who read tweets as SMS?:
Don't tweet. Rarely read any tweets, unless they are here or contained in an opinion column.
Tweet is a vapid wasteland of intellectual stupidity with an occasional oasis of original thought and brilliance. It ain't worth wading through the sand to get to the water.
My thoughts too. Not denying the utility but not worth the time to monitor. I fear the switching costs of constantly looking at different stuff fucks up the brain.
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I find Twitter quite useful from a professional perspective. Many things going on in my professional community are announced and discussed on Twitter.
With regard to politics, I like that you can use it like a personalized newspaper by setting up a corresponding list. The danger is of course that that personalized newspaper becomes the infamous echo chamber.
The political discussions on Twitter, on the other hand, aren't useful for anything, but they can be easily ignored.
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#1 - #4 For me, the answer is no. Never have used it.
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Don't tweet. Rarely read any tweets, unless they are here or contained in an opinion column.
Tweet is a vapid wasteland of intellectual stupidity with an occasional oasis of original thought and brilliance. It ain't worth wading through the sand to get to the water.
@Jolly said in Who Tweets? Who use the Twitter app? Who read tweets as SMS?:
Don't tweet. Rarely read any tweets, unless they are here or contained in an opinion column.
Tweet is a vapid wasteland of intellectual stupidity with an occasional oasis of original thought and brilliance. It ain't worth wading through the sand to get to the water.
