# Why do you use Twitter? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 21, 2014, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-use-twitter/696059 "2014-08-21T02:14:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![weef](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d6d6ee/32.png) [@weef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/weef)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-use-twitter/696059/1 "2014-08-21T02:14:43Z")
I don’t use Twitter but sometimes feel like I’m missing out on something. I have an account but have never used it and even have a few followers including one complete stranger. I’ve just never understood the usefulness of it even though I see businesses and people happily sharing all kinds of info. Do you use Twitter and why? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-use-twitter/696059/2 "2014-08-21T02:23:00Z")
I use it for entertainment purposes. Most of the people I follow are delightfully warped. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-use-twitter/696059/3 "2014-08-21T02:26:19Z")
I have an account for my baseball-related blog. I only tweet baseball-related stuff (actually, most specifically Indians-related stuff), and pretty much only during games. I only follow people who tweet baseball-related stuff during the baseball games. I don’t worry about what they tweet otherwise, because I’m not watching Twitter at that time. At first I found the whole thing tedious and somewhat hard to follow but I came to find out that - like Facebook - the quality of your Twitter feed is directly related to the quality of who you are following. I can’t really follow everyone who follows me, because I don’t want to know what’s going on in the world of Jim From Wooster’s world. But he wants some Indians-related tweets during the Indians game so that’s why he followed me. I’ll quickly unfollow anyone who is more personal stuff than baseball, or people who live-tweet baseball games (WHY??) or people who just have weird personal conversations with their bros across Twitter all night (most baseball beat writers, it would seem). I have a personal account that I’ll use 2-3 times a year for contests or to tweet at famous people, but I never really got any followers because I never said anything and I’m not really interested in tweets outside of baseball. And no one is interested in me, either 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-use-twitter/696059/4 "2014-08-21T02:52:58Z")
I mainly follow news people, political analysts and folks like that who I respect. Going through my Twitter feed gives me a quick update on what’s going on in the world and maybe a little bit of insight. Things of interest I can then check out via other means. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-use-twitter/696059/5 "2014-08-22T14:03:21Z")
I shoot concert videos, mainly performances by various locations of the School of Rock, and 90%+ of my Tweets are links to videos on YouTube from my shoots. It works well for that, much better that Facebook which limits what a business account can do. I have a few famous followers, but I follow only a handful of people, mostly friends, as I don’t want to have more stuff in my Twitter feed than I can easily follow. And I know that my stuff will reach a lot of people as my videos have a nearly 100% reTweet rate. ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-use-twitter/696059/6 "2014-08-22T16:05:11Z")
To express my political views. There is usually profanity involved. ---
**Author:** ![Mithras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mithras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mithras)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-use-twitter/696059/7 "2014-08-22T16:18:27Z")
I don’t have a Twitter account because because I don’t tend to share much online. I do search Twitter, though, when there’s breaking news or something going on locally that I want to know more about. For example, if there’s police activity, a fire, or even a traffic situation that’ll never get reported on, Twitter’s often the best resource for learning what’s happening. It’s pretty great for a nosy person like me, even though I kind of use it hypocritically. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-use-twitter/696059/8 "2014-08-22T18:42:40Z")
I follow different people for different reasons. Comedians to make me laugh and news sources for information. It is also a way to communicate with people you would otherwise never have access to.