# never tweeted, should I start? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 21, 2012, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-tweeted-should-i-start/638411 "2012-10-21T12:36:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-tweeted-should-i-start/638411/41 "2012-10-22T18:06:18Z")
> [@kiz](#): > > And see, I don’t get the point of Tumblr whatsoever other than it’s a “microblog”, whatever that means. And from what little I’ve seen of it, people seem to be using it as an actual blog instead of a “microblog”, whatever that means. > > If I had a business to promote, I know I’d have to have a presence both on Twitter. I get the feeling, though, that given how many people are on it, and how many tweets are sent into the universe every minute, it becomes more like everyone’s talking but nobody’s listening… From what I gather, “microblogging” is not significantly different from blogging at a technological standpoint. It’s rather the community of the site (and to a great extent, its marketing). The purpose of the site is that you quickly share a video or a couple sentences like Facebook or Twitter, but it has flexibility in that if you want to you can use it like Wordpress or whatever and type War and Peace if you wish or need to. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2012, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-tweeted-should-i-start/638411/42 "2012-10-23T02:23:46Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > Yeah, but you don’t have to follow those types of people if you don’t want to. Do you read every single thread here? Is this place god-forsaken because lots of people post things that are inane and silly and uninteresting to you? > > It’s ridiculous that people put down Facebook and Twitter on…a message board. Why? Both are completely different. Facebook is about posting about you, rather than posting about topics. Twitter takes this further by restricting how much you can say. Have you never heard the maxim that dumb people talk about people, average people talk about things, and smart people talk about ideas? The latter is much harder on both of those platforms. Sure, I can not follow someone who doesn’t talk about anything interesting. That’s the equivalent of ignore here. What’s the equivalent of not clicking on a thread that doesn’t interest me? I sure can’t do it on Facebook. (I don’t know if Twitter lets you, as I never could get into it. I can read someone’s tweets without ever actually joining, so why bother?) ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2012, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-tweeted-should-i-start/638411/43 "2012-10-23T04:49:19Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Why? Both are completely different. Facebook is about posting about you, rather than posting about topics. Twitter takes this further by restricting how much you can say. Some people can say a lot with few words. That’s the fun of Twitter. Sometimes I only want bits of information. If I want more I’ll go looking for it. > [@BigT](#): > > Have you never heard the maxim that dumb people talk about people, average people talk about things, and smart people talk about ideas? The latter is much harder on both of those platforms. And? I’m assuming you aren’t implying that only dumb and average people use Twitter and Facebook, and only smart people use message boards like SDMB, but otherwise I’m not sure what you’re getting at. They each serve their purpose. > [@BigT](#): > > Sure, I can not follow someone who doesn’t talk about anything interesting. That’s the equivalent of ignore here. What’s the equivalent of not clicking on a thread that doesn’t interest me? I sure can’t do it on Facebook. I’m confused. Are you saying you can’t not read Facebook status updates you’re not interested in? If so, that’s not true at all. You can set anyone’s status updates to not be shown in your Timeline. If you have 100 Friends on Facebook, but you only want to see status updates from 10 of them, you can do that. It is like putting them on Ignore without deFriending them. Unless you know that and are talking about something else. For anyone interested, you go to a Friend’s page and click on the checkmarked “Friends” button, right next to the Message button. When you click on it you’ll see “Show in News Feed” which is checked by default. Uncheck that and as far as I can tell you’ll never see anything from that person again unless they message you, tag you, poke you, or you go to their page. So you can stay friends with dear Aunt Betty (because to unfriend her would hurt her feelings) without having to read her daily inspirational messages or rants about how the country is going to hell. This is how it is in the new Timeline format. I don’t know about those pages that haven’t moved over yet. > [@BigT](#): > > (I don’t know if Twitter lets you, as I never could get into it. I can read someone’s tweets without ever actually joining, so why bother?) Why bother indeed, each to their own. [QUOTE=Ponch8] I’m a Twitter lurker. I signed up just so I can read Ke$ha’s occasional pearls of wisdom. I also started following an acquaintance just to humor him, but now I’m mad that his boring-ass tweets intermingle with Ke$ha’s on my feed. I worry that if I unfollow him, he’ll somehow find out, get offended, and come after me with a switchblade knife. [/QUOTE] [Twitter.com](http://Twitter.com) doesn’t allow this, but various apps have a “Mute” option, similar to Facebook’s, where you can stay a Follower without ever having to see a Tweet from them, unless they message you directly. I had one on my old iPhone. I never used it much because I generally only Follow people I want to read, even though I don’t read most of the time anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Cinnamon\_Imp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@Cinnamon\_Imp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cinnamon_Imp)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2012, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-tweeted-should-i-start/638411/44 "2012-10-23T07:37:35Z")
I use twitter, to follow some people who aren’t on facebook, or who regularly use twitter to update more than FB (e.g. my local MP, local news, etc). I generally only post to twitter when I’m bitching about people who’re on FB but not on twitter. And yes, my tweets are locked 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Saraya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Saraya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saraya)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2012, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-tweeted-should-i-start/638411/45 "2012-10-23T15:15:23Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > I gotta be honest with myself: I just don’t have enough interesting things to share with the world. Too bad half the population and celebrity dimwits don’t share your logic. Say no to Twitter… the clue is in the name. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotGrrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9dc877/32.png) [@PatriotGrrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotGrrrl)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2012, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-tweeted-should-i-start/638411/46 "2012-10-23T15:29:22Z")
One thing no one has mentioned is that many tweets include a link to a person’s blog (so they really aren’t limited by the number of characters), or a photo, or an interesting article they just read. Twitter is replacing RSS as a quick way of keeping up with blogs or news sites. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2012, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-tweeted-should-i-start/638411/47 "2012-10-23T15:44:05Z")
> [@Saraya](#): > > Too bad half the population and celebrity dimwits don’t share your logic. > Say no to Twitter… the clue is in the name. It’s not compulsory to follow idiots. My feed is full of journalists, writers, scientists, comedians, a few politicians, a few news orgs, a few celebs, and plenty regular folk who I’ve come across who are witty and/or informative. The thing with twitter is that it takes a bit of time and effort to get a good feed together. The way I did it was to start following a few fairly well-known journalists and authors (in the UK anyway) and check to see who they interact with regularly, and then add them, and so on. You need to curate a twitter feed, and I’ve been at it for years. I’m currently following about 600 people (I need to cull that a bit, to be honest) and whenever I look there is pretty much always something interesting or funny or controversial going on. It’s a great resource. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-tweeted-should-i-start/638411.md?page=2)