While Twitter is kind of a new online phenomenon for many offline people, it is kind of an evolutionary idea for many people who have been interacting online since the late 90’s. I have noticed so many people being obsessed with MySpace and Facebook for so many years that it seems kind of normal to actually start thinking of the new Twitter addiction that more and more people are unknowingly and happily jumping into.

I was talking to @Jerine from This-Is-The-Mad-Style and thought of many points in this list. I have talked about webcam obsession before. I have also talked about cell phone addiction earlier this year. Today, we will talk in detail about 20 top signs of Twitter addiction that you may notice or analyze in yourself and others.

Twitter addiction is something that was being discussed even back in March of 2008, when Top 10 signs you might need a Twittervention.” You can use twitter itself to find about twitter addiction also. It seems that the golden age has come when we can say we are addicts and be proud of it. Or at least we do not have to hide from others. Sure, saying “I’m a meth addict!” sounds and feels different than saying “I’m a twitter addict“, but either way, you are an addict and you are on your way to acting like one, if you already are not.

I have been using twitter a lot, specially lately, and today I would like to share with you some points which may show that you are a twitter addict. Maybe these points will help me figure out more about myself too. Maybe I already know, which is why I am posting this list. Here we go:

Top 20 signs of Twitter Addiction

1. You twitter when you don’t want to.

   “I don’t wanna twitter”, as tweeted by “@Miles10001“, @viiviiviivii, “@isdown, and the rest of the twitter world.

   If you do not want to do something and do that something to show that you do not want to do it, while not doing it to do it but to do it to show you do not want to do it, you may be addicted. This is one of the first signs of becoming addicted to twitter.

2. You twitter when you shouldn’t.

   Sometimes you twitter things you should not tweet about. Or maybe they come out with a different meaning for the other tweetopides. Looking at the reasons behind such tweets helps in finding out why such a tweet came to existence. Even then, with the reason in our clear view, it is still easy to usually see how one can tweet about the following things because of feeling very comfortable, or uncomfortable, with Twitter. Either way, one is using twitter to express their most important wishes at that exact moment, which may later come to haunt them back according to the typical society.

   Here are some examples of tweeting things that may not be said or done outside of twitter that much. I do not know these tweeters personally, so I am not sure if they can say such things outside of twitter too. If they do, then they are even bigger twitter addicts than shown here. More power to their twittering!

   “I want to kill him” – by @lywardach, @sohberline and @squince. I do not know about you, but I would personally have to consider Twitter my personal or open diary before I say such a thing. I am almost there, and my target for this very example is the neighbor’s cat. The day you see “I want to kill that damn cat!” by me, expect the biggest twitter addiction you may have possibly witnessed. Maybe you are already witnessing it.

   “I cheated on my boyfriend” by @Bridget291. Confessions are awesome, because they can be used to undermine the very thing one is confessing about. Thanks for confessing, @Bridget291! Hmmmm, she was truthful enough to confess! Any guys out there wanting to confess? Or are many guys not yet that addicted to twitter to start confessing about cheating? Hmmm.

3. You break up, divorce and end relationships via twitter, and on twitter.

   This is the new you. Why go say “We’re done!” in person and get slapped or chased when you can do it more efficiently and safely via twitter? Sure, doing it via text messages work too, but then you get a creep or a non-creep calling you for an explanation. You can do it via e-mail, but e-mails also result in e-mail replies, phone calls, text messages and door bells.

   The best way to break up is via twitter, the way Jerine & I just did via twitter today:

   @JerineLay, sorry, but I’m breaking up with you! It’s not me, it’s not you, it’s twitter! Twitter is always there for me! [1]
   @besz, i wasn’t even dating you! %&**$^*($# [2]
   @JerineLay yes, that’s good. The faster we move on, the better We’re still friends, right? ^^ [3]
   @besz, no I’ve deleted you from Facebook! You’re not a friend anymore [4]
   @JerineLay At least keep me on MySpace! Who keeps the dog? Please take the damn dog! He loves you more anyhow! #jbd-1 [5]
   @besz You don’t even remember I don’t have a Myspace. The dog was your idea you can keep it, I’m moving out. Had enough of you. #jbd-1 [6]
   All the way to to end of #jbd-1.

   Remember, you can break up easily within 140 characters or less if you are a twitter addict. If you do not break up via twitter, you’ll feel like you’re doing it the wrong way. Breaking up in person is so violent, so uncomfortable, so boring, and ohhhh soooo oldishly web 1.0!

   By the way, Bes & Jerine are not the only celebrities to break up due to twitter. @surrendermyself and @AmandaKay52

are excellently cute examples of twittering because you are twittering to say that you are tweeting about your twittering. And you do it in a very simple fashion, of course.

4. You twitter about everything. All the time.

   You twitter about breathing, taking your first step, looking at the computer, looking at your neighbor, not looking at your neighbor, and lifting your thumbs to twitter. “Just lifted my fingers to tweet something that will be tweeted soon” is a commonly tweeted message by you. You always wonder why your twitter-follower base fluctuates when you head to the restroom.

5. You frown and laugh at people who do not twitter

   Last year, the question “Do you have MySpace?” or “Are you on Facebook?” were very, very common. They are still common today, though they are slowly being overshadowed by the new lines: “Do you Twitter?“, “Are you on twitter?” and similar questions with the word “Twitter” in them.

6. Majority or all of the emails and txts you get are related to twitter.

   You have two folders in your e-mail account. One says “Twitter Inbox.” Other one says “Non-twitter crap.” There is no other folder.

   All of the text messages you get on your cell phone are Twitter-related. When you go through your previous 10,000 text messages, you get annoyed at all the spam texts you have before they are directly from your offline friends and not from twitter.

7. Majority of all snail mail you get is related to twitter.

   You have done it. I will not tell you how, as it is my secret too, but you have managed to integrate Twitter into your offline line through the most traditional and the 2nd oldest form of message transmission: snail mail. Almost all of the actual physical mail you get at your home is twitter-related. You are thinking of getting a postal box just for all the twitter mail.

8. You do things people tell you on Twitter. You do not question any Twitterrer, err, tweet, err, tweeter!

   If someone gives you any advice on Twitter, you take it. If someone says something, that is the same as them being in front of you and saying it. If @verwon tweets you indirectly and vaguely suggests you go get cereal at 2am because of your blabbing and craving for her cereal, you go to the supermarket at 2am to get that cereal!. You simply treat Twitter like it is your wife. Or your husband. Or some holy thing. Or something you do not understand and thus you cannot disobey it. Someone says “I punched you!” on twitter and you actually start crying and start blocking that person. That is why you did not get on Facebook: you knew the pokes would make you not be able to tilt sideways one day.

9. You hate whales.

   In real life, whenever you see a whale on TV or in a Zoo, you get nervous and do not like being talked to for a few moments till you can look at some birds. Unless the birds are right next to the whale, that is. When twitter is down & the big cute whale is being flown by superhuman-strengthened cute little birds, you do not know what to do till the whale disappears. You hate the Fail Whale. The Fail Whale website makes you smile only once before you go into a big monkey rage and start drinking milk and sitting in the corner in order to cool down and think of the stars.

   

   You actually pray that the rope indirectly being pulled by the birds to hold the whale breaks and that you see the whale splatting onto a floor that has this inscription on it: “ERROR THIS, YOU BI$&* OF A WHALE!! GONNA TWEET THIS WITH YOUR SPLATTING PIC TOO!”¹ The whale is your enemy. When people tell you “Hey, have you seen the “I know what you did last summer!” movie?“, you think of google mapping the way back to the secret desert place where you buried that damn whale that has been missing from the zoo for almost a year now.

10. You plan your whole day and life on twitter.

    “Marry Ash”
    “Buy milk at 2 pm”
    “Clean the damn toilet”
    and
    “Clean the blood stains before the kids get home”

    are some of the normal tweets you send to twitter in any hour of your typical day, and you do it publicly so other twitter members can remind you if you relist some agenda in the future. When you get arrested for any crime, the only evidence needed against you is a printout of your twitter timeline.

11. You have a cell phone so that you can tweet through it.

    Phone calls come second. You actually asked the phone company if you can only get a data plan with no minute plan. After they became silent for 2 minutes and said “No…“, you got a minute plan. Literally. You have unlimited data plan and around 27 Twitter apps on your phone. You have a 1 minute nights and weekends minute plan. You are probably with AT&T so your minutes are getting rolled over onto the next month, each month.

12. You check your tweet followers and status updates more than you check your bank balance, your pockets for stuff and your kitchen for food.

    They say “An Apple a day keeps the doctor away.” They were lying because they hated Dracula. “Twitter stats every day keeps Zain’s anxiety away” is what it should say instead. Go on, tweet about it and make sure it is said that way from today onward!

13. You do not ask others for their phone numbers. You ask for their twitter usernames.

    On a first date? If she ain’t got no twitter, she ain’t gonna win your heart. Your coworkers want to email you. You tell them “@BesZain me yo!” They hope for you to get fired right away.

14. You think of becoming the main character in American Psycho 3 whenever you hear the word “BrightKite.”

    You realize that BrightKite is an abomination. You dread BrightKite. They ruined Twitter by adding geographical and other features to the Twitter models. Those copiers. Those evil copiers! Reading this very point makes you upset and want to unsubscribe from my site and from my twitter. * nooooo *

15. You are thinking of blocking me on Twitter because of me bringing up even the slight idea that you can smile in a post related to Twitter, instead of take it seriously a hundred percent.

    Twitter is your life. Why make fun of someone’s life? Me talking about Twitter like this is making you very, very mad.

16. When you cannot twitter, you assign your neighbors and co-workers to twitter for you.

    They actually guess or drive around to find out what you are up to and then twitter for you. A tweeter in need is a friendly tweeting friend indeed. They won’t allow you to take your cell phone with you to the hospital? Into the special screening of a new movie? In the military restroom? In the plane? No problem. What are your friends and contacts for?

17. You tweet so much, any time not spent on twitter means dozens of possible tweets lost.

    You are getting more and more upset since the second you saw the dreaded “BrightKite” mentioned above. Now you are mad at me for making you read this article, and for making you read about things like Facebook. Why are you mad at this very point? Because you could have tweeted at least 35 tweets during this whole time. Instead of reading these 20 points of twitter addiction, you could have shared with the world through your tweets how you breath, how you walk, how you look at stalkers and how you stalker others. Everything you do can be tweeted, and it should be, and it must be!

    You did not lock your doors one night last month because that would have meant not tweeting for a minute. And then you tweeted “Got robbed! ” the next day, after tweeting “Dang, forgot to lock the door and in bed already” on your public twitter line the previous night, where your profile still lists your address for everyone to see.

18. When twitter is down, you want to twitter that twitter is down because you cannot do anything else.

    When you cannot have something, you want it. That is when you realize your reliance on that thing. When twitter is down, you can realize your addiction by actually tweeting about twitter being down while it is down. Alex, @Chuology and @LowEasy_WTF have all done it. So should you!

    

    What if you are getting seizures because Twitter is down and you cannot tweet that it is down? You wanna twitter but a big whale is jumping on you? No problem! The magical magicians at TweetLater allow you to tweet and do many other things on a schedule, so your tweets never get lost and they can be posted when twitter is back up or at a later time. “If only offline addiction to drugs and chocolate could continue on without the actual addictive substance!”², you tweet! Of course, if TweetLater is down also, as it was at the very time of this writing, you may simply have to go see a psychiatrist to get those suicidal thoughts out of your head. Your psychiatrist may suggest tweeting your thoughts to let the emotions out. You may go home tonight and sleep a very confused sleep.

19. Twitter is not an account you use anymore. Twitter is your name.

    You mailed off an application to the government to have your name legally changed to include “Twitter” in it. Till that application gets processed, you want everyone to call you Twitter, or Twit. You feel different being called a “Twit” now compared to before when you had not thought of changing your name. All bullies in your area hate you now because no one is annoyed at their use of the word “Twit” anymore. And also because you threatened to sue them for misusing your almost-legal-until-name-changing-application-gets-approved name.

Are you a twitter addict?

What do you think? Can you think of more points? What is your opinion on any of the above points? How many times did you tweet today before reading this article, or while reading this article?

Are you a twitter addict? And remember to tweet “I will sleep well tonight after reading @BesZ ’s post delight!” from your phone before you go to sleep tonight. It is only 63 letters long.

Thanks for reading. I’m off to tweeting!

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