A cat named Twitter

About two months ago, I was suffering from some serious Twitter fatigue. Since then, I've learned more efficient ways to use programs like TweetDeck and use filters, groups and other techniques to alleviate the pressure I felt. It's worked great, and I've been able to participate in Twitter more actively without feeling pressure to do so.

In the last 60 days, though, I've noticed a trend with some Twitter users, who like to waste the time of each and every one of us by sending crap like this:

"Good morning, Twitter!"
"Just had my coffee, Twitter. Anyone want some?"
"Going to take a shower, Twitter."
"Dear Twitter, I don't want to go to work today."
"Oh Twitter, what should I wear?"
"Just got dressed. I'm putting on my shoes now. Then I have to go to work."
"At work and I'm already ready to go home. Sigh."
"I'm tired. Is it nap time yet?"
"Time to go to lunch. Twitter, do you want me to get you some?"
"Sitting down at my computer. Time to play solitaire!"
"I'm leaving work and getting on the train now. I'll be home soon, Twitter!"
"Mmmm, mmmm. Dinner was good."
"My cell phone battery is dead. Guess I'll have to charge it!"
"I'm tired. Good night, Twitter."

If your tweets resemble that list, turn off your computer. Then go to the pound, trade the computer for a cat, name her Twitter, and then tell her all about your mundane day-to-day activities. Now you'll be able to share all of your daily shit with Twitter and the rest of us don't have to see it! Here's a good rule of thumb. If it's something that you would mumble to yourself or something that a lonely old lady would say to her cat, it's something that you should refrain from tweeting.

Twitter is like a giant eternal party where you can step in and out of conversations with different people. Your goal for using Twitter (unless you're a so-called social media expert) should be to be one of the interesting partygoers, not the guy who's standing in the corner talking to a houseplant about his latest dice roll while playing Dungeons & Dragons. That guy? People will come up to him, talk to him for a second, and then leave as quickly as they can flee. The interesting person will find that more and more people engage him or her in conversation because they know they won't have to hear about nap time or putting on socks or feeding the dog.

I encourage the rest of you to take the following action. Next time you read a mundane tweet, reply to that person and just say, "@mundaneperson, nobody cares. Tell your cat." And then unfollow them. Only then can Twitter start to shine like the resource it should be. (Well, after we get rid of the new blog post tweets, the blip.fm tweets, the location tweets, the sponsored tweets, the re-tweets, and the twitter parties.)

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