Solitaire. Mario Kart. Farmville. Twitter. It’s so easy to get addicted to, well, just about anything these days. Am I a Twitter addict? Perhaps, but only because I think it benefits me both personally and business-wise. I’m not a huge “needless chatterer” on social media, but I’m willing to bet a majority of you can relate to one or more of the following.
Besides, I don’t know why all the attacks come due to Twitter. I’ve been playing the “social media” game for decades. Yep, I conversed, shared info, followed links and such on Usenet, Forums and more ever since I turned on my first computer.
But, alas, it’s all about Twitter these days.
You know you’re addicted to Twitter when…
1. It’s the first thing you check when you get out of bed. This is before coffee and before your eyes have even had the chance to focus.
2. You stop what you’re doing when alerts tell you someone you follow has posted.
3. You have to check it after already tucked into bed, even though you checked it just before getting into bed. You can’t risk going a full night’s sleep with the possibility that someone mentioned you without posting an immediate reply.
4. Despite following hundreds (or even thousands) of people, when it’s slow you spend hours looking for more folks to follow because, well, you’re bored.
5. You can’t go longer than two hours without tweeting or re-tweeting, so you spend time on the Web specifically to find something to post.
6. You recycle your tweets so many times over that your long-term followers know them by heart (and you freak out if they, in turn, unfollow you).
7. You check Twitter on your phone while in the bathroom – a public one.
8. You compose tweets while sitting at red lights.
9. Your frustrated in traffic, not because visiting hours at the hospital are about to end, but because you just have to tell the world about the bizarre guy in a chicken suit you saw at Wal-Mart. I.e. The need to tweet is, at times, an emergency.
10. When you get pulled over for speeding, you ask the cop to wait a moment while you tell Twitterers that you just got pulled over. You grow quite irritated when the cop says you’re wasting his time.
11. You are in constant denial, despite everyone around you telling you that you’re addicted. Remember, admitting you have a problem is the first step.
12. After exhausting all other options, your family realizes that the only way it can host a successful intervention is to follow you on Twitter and start tweeting about your problem.
13. When your family follows you and tweets about your problem, in hopes to get you to admit you have a problem, you promptly close your account and open a new one. You are frantic because you just lost all your followers, so you stay up all night messaging them, begging them to follow your new account.
14. You have multiple accounts and tweet, re-tweet, and even DM… yourself.
15. You not only type your emails in shorthand, but are now adamant about all phone calls lasting 140 characters or less. You’ve become a savant, because you now “hear” the characters ticking off as people speak.
16. You hide behind the paper towels at the grocery store, waiting to see something funny so you can snap a picture and post a link to it within seconds.
17. The bruises on your face and arms are evidence of the multiple times you’ve stumbled while tweeting and walking at the same time.
18. You introduce yourself to strangers by simply nodding and saying, “Hi, I’m Bob. What’s your twitter name?” And when Bob replies he doesn’t have one, you reply, stammering, “WHAT? WHY NOT? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”
19. You don’t just have a “bird” tattoo, but beneath it one of your favorite twitter posts, complete with @username: and bit.ly link.
20. You’ve legally changed your first name to include the @ symbol.
Got more? I’d love to hear them.
