By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2010-08-30 16:20:36 | Word Count: 664
Too much of anything is never good—and that goes double for those that have become addicted to one of the hottest social media sites on the internet—Twitter. Anyone who finds themselves obsessed or even just overly distressed by Twitter may want to consider the official ‘diagnosis,’ Twitter Rage. The guilt, anger and frustration many people experience when it comes to their Twitter account is more than just a little bit concerning. In fact, it may be a good idea for everyone to study Twitter Rage 101. After all, knowing the signs and the symptoms is the first step towards a complete recovery.
Twitter, like all social networking sites, started out as a good thing. For most of us, it remains that way. It is an easy to use tool that allows users to create miniblogs and to broadcast them to their ‘followers.’ Followers, like friends on other networks, are alerted whenever a new Tweet is available for their review. Anyone has the ability to ‘retweet’ or to share a particular Tweet with their own followers. This can lead to large networks of readers and can easily become viral in nature. Twitter is a natural fit for businesses looking for a way to add social media to their SEO tool kit or for anyone simply looking for a way to keep in touch with those around them.
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When used for the greater good, Twitter is a great tool, but there are those who take it too far. If you, or someone you love, are experiencing any of the following symptoms, it may be time to rethink the amount of time you spend tweeting.
* Outage Rage: Anyone who is inordinately upset when Twitter goes down may have a problem. Throwing things, screaming, crying or acting disturbed are all common signs of people experiencing outage rage.
* Guilt: A Twitter user who experiences overwhelming feelings of guilt when they have not commented on others Tweets might have a problem.
* The World Complex: Common among those who suffer from Twitter rage is the six degrees of separation belief. Compulsively adding followers in order to know the world is little more than a waste of time.
* TMI: Many who suffer from Twitter rage feel the need to constantly update the world on their life—even small, boring and unnecessary information is tweeted about.
Twitter Rage 101 tells us that this is a real problem, with real people suffering from it. Angry episodes, guilt ridden hours spent hunched over the computer and more occur more often than we would like to think. There is no known cure for Twitter Rage, except complete withdrawal from the service. Many think this is too extreme, but it does work.
Using Twitter to advertise a business or to update friends and family is fun and harmless, but those who live and die by their ability to Tweet may have a problem. Who knows, one day soon there may very well be a Twitters Anonymous.
