

Twitter and Loneliness - tommaxwell
http://blog.semilshah.com/2013/01/01/twitter-and-loneliness/

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bodegajed
This is why I like Twitter better than Facebook. In Twitter, people who follow
you are really interested on what you want to say while in FB you're forced to
listen to your friends (by default).

Then when you feel lonely you would just send an update to these people to
listen to your feelings. Which are the people who wanted to listen to you to
begin with.

Some of them might be your friends or acquaintances or just complete
strangers. But the best part is they followed you and they want to hear from
you.

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visarga
Please explain twitter to me. I don't get it. I searched #puerh to find
interesting links and comments. I found 2 comments per day, 10 in total. What
should I do with this? It is not nearly enough. If I go to teachat.com there
is a 1700 posts long thread started in 2008, with complex discussions and
pictures.

I tried other interests, every time I come out empty handed. Is there a trick
to searching content on twitter? Is twitter only for gadgets and social stuff?
What about obscure hobbies?

~~~
chipsy
Twitter isn't ideal for people who prefer to abstractly snipe into a
discussion(which is the overwhelming tendency of hobbyist forums) because it's
too personal. You have to follow a whole person, and take in their whole set
of interests, and reply to them specifically if their remarks interest you. So
for obscure hobbies, starting the conversation becomes much more difficult
than on a dedicated site - plus take into account the relative size of the
whole Web vs. Twitter.

In exchange for this weakness, Twitter gains vast influence in topics that
have some critical mass of interest. Creative fields are an obvious pick -
art, music, writing, programming, journalism, video games, among many others -
all share a special space on Twitter. The professionals in the field have an
easy time networking on Twitter since it's very informal and has "degrees" of
friendship built in (comment, follow, follow-back). Plus if they're
independent(which is the case for a lot of these creative fields) they have no
corporate masters to hold back their thoughts; so subsequently, industry news
and rumors flow through very readily - retweeting and hashtagging act to
spread a single discussion across many otherwise removed individuals. This is
where things get interesting, because it makes radically different
perspectives collide with alarming frequency - it can't happen like that on a
single forum because the "minority" or "unprivileged" perspective gets
suppressed at some point.

Lifestyle and subculture topics are similarly hot on Twitter because they
involve the whole person and how they choose to define themselves...often
people on Twitter will converge into groups of friendship by transitioning
from the "interest topic" to the people involved.

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rikacomet
biggest factor for this: when you are lonely, you have little or no words to
say, twitter encourages you with just the 140 letter limit, to put your
feelings forwards.

small target seems achievable, and you talk it out, and you feel better. Happy
new year mate!

