Twitter: Are people addicted or just committed posters?

I started wondering recently about the popularity of twitter and why some people seem to spend what appears to be the majority of their day posting on it. Yes I am a fan of twitter, I have a twitter account that I would check multiple times during the day, it gives me something to do for a few minutes while I am standing outside getting my nicotine fix. I would take advantage of this time to tweet my daily ramblings or join in with whatever topic is being discussed at that time. I would catch up with friends I follow, arrange pub outings or organise that weeks soccer match and that’s the extent of my twitter usage.  I would class myself as a casual user.

I like twitter; I get the concept of being able to get your views to millions of people instantly. A master stroke on behalf of Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stones. I don’t think I’m being too dramatic if I say it has revolutionised the way people communicate. It gives a voice to everyone.

I do have one problem with twitter that I can’t really understand, and that is the perpetual tweeter. I follow a few people who would post messages a lot during their day, I am talking about people with 40-50,000 tweets in just over 2 years, and in a way you have to acknowledge the effort the put in and I suppose they are the ones who keep the whole thing going. These are the people whom I consider to be committed to the twitter experience.

My gripe is with the people who seem to post ad nauseam about every little detail of their lives. You know the kind of thing I mean “leaving the house now to get the bus”, then they follow up with “Arriving at the bus stop now”, who gives a crap, and they go on like this all day. Is it really that important that we know every little detail of their lives? Personally I don’t think so. It’s not the fact that they tweet so often,  but it’s the, and this is just my opinion, the mindless drivel that gets posted every couple of minutes, and they seem to post the same thing every day “Leaving the house for work, must walk to the bus” yes thank you we know, you post the same damn thing every single morning and this is the crux of my gripe with these tweeters, the fact that they feel the need to tweet something no matter how banal  or random every few minutes. Why? Will they develop a nervous twitch if they don’t post something every couple of minutes?  Are these people addicted? In my opinion if they tweet about everything, all the time, then the answer is yes.

I followed a few of these people on twitter  just to observe, see if I was missing something, was there some other level to twitter that had passed me by. The conclusion I came to was no. What led me to this conclusion was the recent snow falls we had here in Ireland. I had tweets every morning telling me that it was cold outside, of course it’s cold outside there is 5 inches of snow everywhere, bloody hell tell me something new, it was at this stage I decided to unfollow these people and claim my sanity back, I would never understand the need to post these pointless tweets. Maybe there is some aspect of twitter I am missing but if that’s it then I am glad to miss out.