4 ms·

i'm a 18-30 millennial in tech who has never used twitter, is it really more addicting than reddit, facebook, et al.?

by therobot24 10y ago

jamisteven 10y ago
Nobody I know uses Twitter, I think its a California thing.
- rconti 10y ago
  As a Californian, nope. I can already see what my friends are doing on Facebook. I try to follow interesting people, but too much of the content is uninteresting or unrelated. I follow some F1 drivers, but most of the time they're tweeting about random crap only their friends care about. And/or I'm getting race spoilers when I can't watch live. Every user is such a firehose of information that it's impossible to get the type of content I want. You also either get WAY too much in volume, or too little. That's aside from their terrible usability problems where promoted tweets and "while you were away" and other such junk clutters your feed. Somehow, a longer, more graphic-intensive Facebook feed (with content on the left and right side as well) is still more information-dense than a "140 character" Twitter feed. How they make such poor use of real estate, I have no idea. IMO Twitter is more for broadcasting/receiving information, often with celebrities or famous people or news organizations, and Facebook is more for interacting with people you already know. But the aforementioned problem of people you follow spending 95% of their time tweeting about their breakfast or unrelated interests, and 5% the type of content you care about, remains. I've really enjoyed using twitter at conferences, though, where you can at least interact with people via hashtags. (why you still cannot follow a hashtag, however, is beyond me).
laurentdc 10y ago
Meh, I've had my Twitter account for a day before abandoning it, since nobody I know uses it except for a netadmin who gets alerts through it. I guess it becomes addictive if you start getting thousands of followers and start feeling like some sort of "influencer". Just like Facebook or Instagram for that matter.
colmvp 10y ago
Depends on who you ask and your interests. Nearly every journalist/news junkie/policy wonk/social activist I know where I live loves Twitter, largely because you can follow other interesting journalists/writers/professionals and converse with them on Twitter. I've had conversations with pretty notable people on Twitter which would never happen on Reddit (save for IAMA) or Facebook. I'm glad that there's a platform for anonymous users (Reddit) and identified users (Facebook/Twitter). Whenever people trash Twitter, I'm always baffled, because the experience is what you make of it. I can follow interesting people like Snowden, Musk, Gladwell, William Gibson, Degrasse Tyson, Zach Lowe etc. and have endless list of links to browse or interesting thoughts to ponder on... the experience can be far more edifying that either Facebook or Reddit.
- SyneRyder 10y ago
  Great point about the journalists - being on Twitter is how I've ended up being found by journalists and appearing in some TV interviews on BBC & Al Jazeera. That isn't why I'm on Twitter, but it's been a fun side benefit. I also know some people who say they get most of their clients for their freelance business directly from their Twitter feed now. They tweet they have availability & get enquiries instantly.
guessmyname 10y ago
I am in the same boat. I created my account +4 years ago and have never tweeted a message before nor I have followed anyone. In fact, besides taking ownership of my recurrent nickname on the Internet I have no other use case for Twitter and other popular social websites. HN, Reddit, and (maybe?) LinkedIn are my go-tool for socializing with virtual strangers. Ironically, I would be more than happy to work at Twitter just because of how interesting it would be to work in a company with that infrastructure, but personally I think their business, product, service or whatever you want to call it is mostly dead.
s3r3nity 10y ago
Not sure this is the right audience to ask - 3/4 commenters would say they don't have a FB account, but 1.7BN monthly active users on FB would tell you that statistically HN is not representative of the average social media user =) Nevertheless, to answer your question: I find that it's addictive, but in a different use case. I put Twitter in my "News" app folder on my phone, as I find it to be an efficient way to see the best or top stories from people/organizations/subject areas that I care about without needing to flood my email inbox with a shit-ton of newsletters. I have fewer messages clouding my inbox (strengthening the signal/noise ratio there) and I only follow high-quality Twitter contributors that correspond to interests I have or for keeping up to date on my industry. Facebook can also be "news," but it's like "news of my family / friends." I don't follow business pages too much unless I want notifications of events, like following a concert hall near me so I can get instant notifications of when bands schedule concerts there and tickets go on sale. Reddit and HN are useful as well for news/stimulus reading, but because the content is generated by biased readership and leads to clique-y behavior, I tend to find myself visiting those apps less and less. It just turns me off whenever I see 90% of HN comments bashing MSFT when they release something cool or positive simply because it's fashionable to hate on MSFT; or when I'm trying to read the latest Bungie updates on Destiny on Reddit and 90% of the comments are circle-jerks on lack of a PC port and/or an inside joke that goes on longer than it should.
xemdetia 10y ago
In professional consulting (usually through user group meetings) I see a lot of people obsessed with it because they feel it's a critical part of their networking strategy to make them feel like they are notable and to keep their name out there. If you aren't exposed to those sorts of people then you probably wouldn't find the same level. It's similar to people who have a very well curated email list for their customers/clients.
elyase 10y ago
If you follow the right people in your fields of interest you will have an endless stream of interesting updated content. You can't personalize HN to have the exact sort of news you want but you can tune the people you follow in Twitter and get the best source of curated news there is for you. I frequently find stuff like new library releases/interesting blog posts from someone I follow well before they appear (if they ever do) in places like HN/Reddit subs I frequent.
perseusprime11 10y ago
Not unless you tend to have a lot of arguments. Reddit is by far more addictive. I think that is because people are more open to talking their mind when they are anonymous.
- EpicEng 10y ago
  Are you saying that there are fewer arguments on reddit?
lj3 10y ago
It's more immediate. The whole system is more or less 'real time'[0] so actual conversations are possible[1]. I can see that being more addicting than Facebook or Reddit, where conversations tend to happen over longer periods of time. One of the biggest benefits I get from Twitter is real time news from people who are actually there instead of relying on what passes for journalistic integrity these days. On the other hand, Twitter is an interesting experiment in weaponized language, which can turn some people off. 140 characters isn't enough room to actually explain anything or provide proof or even simple logical arguments, so every argument on twitter is about invoking as strong an emotional response as possible. That emotion is usually anger. Also, the structure of twitter itself makes it unbelievably easy to organize lynch mobs. [0]: Yes, it's not an actual, formal real time system, but it feels real time to the user. [1]: I still prefer Jabber-style chat or IRC to twitter, but I will admit the 'broadcast' design of twitter makes it easier to participate in conversations across many different areas of interest at the same time.

i'm a 18-30 millennial in tech who has never used twitter, is it really more addicting than reddit, facebook, et al.?

jamisteven 10y ago

Nobody I know uses Twitter, I think its a California thing.

rconti 10y ago
As a Californian, nope. I can already see what my friends are doing on Facebook. I try to follow interesting people, but too much of the content is uninteresting or unrelated. I follow some F1 drivers, but most of the time they're tweeting about random crap only their friends care about. And/or I'm getting race spoilers when I can't watch live. Every user is such a firehose of information that it's impossible to get the type of content I want. You also either get WAY too much in volume, or too little. That's aside from their terrible usability problems where promoted tweets and "while you were away" and other such junk clutters your feed. Somehow, a longer, more graphic-intensive Facebook feed (with content on the left and right side as well) is still more information-dense than a "140 character" Twitter feed. How they make such poor use of real estate, I have no idea. IMO Twitter is more for broadcasting/receiving information, often with celebrities or famous people or news organizations, and Facebook is more for interacting with people you already know. But the aforementioned problem of people you follow spending 95% of their time tweeting about their breakfast or unrelated interests, and 5% the type of content you care about, remains. I've really enjoyed using twitter at conferences, though, where you can at least interact with people via hashtags. (why you still cannot follow a hashtag, however, is beyond me).

laurentdc 10y ago

Meh, I've had my Twitter account for a day before abandoning it, since nobody I know uses it except for a netadmin who gets alerts through it. I guess it becomes addictive if you start getting thousands of followers and start feeling like some sort of "influencer". Just like Facebook or Instagram for that matter.

colmvp 10y ago

Depends on who you ask and your interests. Nearly every journalist/news junkie/policy wonk/social activist I know where I live loves Twitter, largely because you can follow other interesting journalists/writers/professionals and converse with them on Twitter. I've had conversations with pretty notable people on Twitter which would never happen on Reddit (save for IAMA) or Facebook. I'm glad that there's a platform for anonymous users (Reddit) and identified users (Facebook/Twitter). Whenever people trash Twitter, I'm always baffled, because the experience is what you make of it. I can follow interesting people like Snowden, Musk, Gladwell, William Gibson, Degrasse Tyson, Zach Lowe etc. and have endless list of links to browse or interesting thoughts to ponder on... the experience can be far more edifying that either Facebook or Reddit.

SyneRyder 10y ago
Great point about the journalists - being on Twitter is how I've ended up being found by journalists and appearing in some TV interviews on BBC & Al Jazeera. That isn't why I'm on Twitter, but it's been a fun side benefit. I also know some people who say they get most of their clients for their freelance business directly from their Twitter feed now. They tweet they have availability & get enquiries instantly.

guessmyname 10y ago

I am in the same boat. I created my account +4 years ago and have never tweeted a message before nor I have followed anyone. In fact, besides taking ownership of my recurrent nickname on the Internet I have no other use case for Twitter and other popular social websites. HN, Reddit, and (maybe?) LinkedIn are my go-tool for socializing with virtual strangers. Ironically, I would be more than happy to work at Twitter just because of how interesting it would be to work in a company with that infrastructure, but personally I think their business, product, service or whatever you want to call it is mostly dead.

s3r3nity 10y ago

Not sure this is the right audience to ask - 3/4 commenters would say they don't have a FB account, but 1.7BN monthly active users on FB would tell you that statistically HN is not representative of the average social media user =) Nevertheless, to answer your question: I find that it's addictive, but in a different use case. I put Twitter in my "News" app folder on my phone, as I find it to be an efficient way to see the best or top stories from people/organizations/subject areas that I care about without needing to flood my email inbox with a shit-ton of newsletters. I have fewer messages clouding my inbox (strengthening the signal/noise ratio there) and I only follow high-quality Twitter contributors that correspond to interests I have or for keeping up to date on my industry. Facebook can also be "news," but it's like "news of my family / friends." I don't follow business pages too much unless I want notifications of events, like following a concert hall near me so I can get instant notifications of when bands schedule concerts there and tickets go on sale. Reddit and HN are useful as well for news/stimulus reading, but because the content is generated by biased readership and leads to clique-y behavior, I tend to find myself visiting those apps less and less. It just turns me off whenever I see 90% of HN comments bashing MSFT when they release something cool or positive simply because it's fashionable to hate on MSFT; or when I'm trying to read the latest Bungie updates on Destiny on Reddit and 90% of the comments are circle-jerks on lack of a PC port and/or an inside joke that goes on longer than it should.

xemdetia 10y ago

In professional consulting (usually through user group meetings) I see a lot of people obsessed with it because they feel it's a critical part of their networking strategy to make them feel like they are notable and to keep their name out there. If you aren't exposed to those sorts of people then you probably wouldn't find the same level. It's similar to people who have a very well curated email list for their customers/clients.

elyase 10y ago

If you follow the right people in your fields of interest you will have an endless stream of interesting updated content. You can't personalize HN to have the exact sort of news you want but you can tune the people you follow in Twitter and get the best source of curated news there is for you. I frequently find stuff like new library releases/interesting blog posts from someone I follow well before they appear (if they ever do) in places like HN/Reddit subs I frequent.

perseusprime11 10y ago

Not unless you tend to have a lot of arguments. Reddit is by far more addictive. I think that is because people are more open to talking their mind when they are anonymous.

EpicEng 10y ago
Are you saying that there are fewer arguments on reddit?

lj3 10y ago

It's more immediate. The whole system is more or less 'real time'[0] so actual conversations are possible[1]. I can see that being more addicting than Facebook or Reddit, where conversations tend to happen over longer periods of time. One of the biggest benefits I get from Twitter is real time news from people who are actually there instead of relying on what passes for journalistic integrity these days. On the other hand, Twitter is an interesting experiment in weaponized language, which can turn some people off. 140 characters isn't enough room to actually explain anything or provide proof or even simple logical arguments, so every argument on twitter is about invoking as strong an emotional response as possible. That emotion is usually anger. Also, the structure of twitter itself makes it unbelievably easy to organize lynch mobs. [0]: Yes, it's not an actual, formal real time system, but it feels real time to the user. [1]: I still prefer Jabber-style chat or IRC to twitter, but I will admit the 'broadcast' design of twitter makes it easier to participate in conversations across many different areas of interest at the same time.