As more and more outlets pop up and more and more people rely on existing networks for communication, it’s no surprise that many of us feel addicted to social media. I’m sure your mother or maybe even your doctor has told you that spending all day on Twitter is not advised. But now, one of Twitter’s founders is saying that same thing: spending all day refreshing your tweet stream is unhealthy.
Speaking at a business gathering in Montreal, Biz Stone had this to say when asked about people reported to spend hours upon hours straight on Twitter:
“To me, that sounds unhealthy. I like the kind of engagement where you go to the website and you leave because you’ve found what you are looking for or you found something very interesting and you learned something. I think that’s a much healthier engagement. Obviously, we want you to come frequently.”
Twitter is addicting – there’s no debate there. It’s appealing because of the entertainment value of some tweets and also because of the real-time info factor. Stone went on to say that “nobody thought [Twitter] was a good idea.” Apparently, people thought it would never be useful.
Some people would still agree, as the topic of citizen journalism continues to be a hot debate. Just how important is Twitter to the world of real-time information?
As far as Stone’s suggestion that Twitter overload is a bad idea…
@patpirisi
pat pirisiBiz Stone says spending too much time on Twitter is unhealthy. That might explain my carpal tunnel syndrome, near blindness and scoliosis.
42 minutes ago via web · Reply · Retweet · Favorite · powered by @socialditto
@LARRYandWILLY
larry and willyBiz Stone of twitter says looking at your twitter feed 12 hours a day is not healthy! Allright. we’ll do 6 on Facebook.6 on Twitter then. 1 hour ago via web · Reply · Retweet · Favorite · powered by @socialditto
@ROXSTARZENT
MJRECORDSno shit…it’s unhealthy to stare at anything all day“@BlakkaEllis: twitter co-founder says it’s unhealthy to stare at tweets all day” 55 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone · Reply · Retweet · Favorite · powered by @socialditto
Biz Stone had another interesting thing to say regarding Twitter’s structure. Although many people have clamored for Twitter to extend the character limit beyond 140, he provides a compelling reason why they won’t do that:
“One of the wonderful things that’s emerged is that there’s a lot of creativity that comes from constraint.”
A recent Nielsen study revealed that as a whole, American spend 565,156 minutes on Twitter per month. American spend a whopping 53.4 million minutes on Facebook. Do you think we are addicted to social media? Let us know in the comments.