Twitter Notifications Get Weird

When I joined Twitter, Twitter notified users of specific "likes" and "retweets." That was manageable, although I follow it only during down, down time.

But recently, in an attempt to streamline pages, Twitter has lumped "likes," "retweets," and "mentions" together...and "mentions" include eeeeverything.

For those who don't use Twitter, I can imagine this becoming a reason not to.

Suppose you, as a new Twit (meaning Twitter user), post a comment on a news item that a few thousand people are Twittering about. Keeping it simple...say it's a winter weather report, and you post something like "What a pretty snow picture."

You are now part of a "conversation" among a few thousand people you don't know, and Twitter will now "notify" you of all the other utterances in that conversation.

Juvenile Twit A: "that snowplow looks like yo mama @JuvenileTwitB"

Juvenile Twit B (posting ugly animal picture): "This is yr Mom."

Juvenile Twit A (posting public outhouse picture): "This is your house @JuvenileTwitB."

Juvenile Twit B: "Also yr religion is insane."

Juvenile Twit A: "Well u voted for a fool." (References to voting and party loyalty do not necessarily imply that the Twits posting them are old enough to vote in actual elections; schools have mock elections too.)

Juvenile Twit B (posting garbage picture): "heres what @JuvenileTwitA had for lunch."

Etc. Etc. Etc. This kind of thing is not necessarily to be confused with bullying--the children involved may think it's fun, or even funny--but it's not interesting for you. And it literally goes on day and night. And unless they took the trouble to click a "Reply To" button and remove 599 news item readers' names, all of it is classified as "conversation that includes you," although it obviously doesn't.

And you have to scroll through it--all of it--to see your own notifications, to learn that, e.g., your e-friend "liked" that you replied to her "home, ill" post with "best wishes," and that somebody retweeted your link to the pretty snow picture. Well, that's nice, but was it worth scrolling through all those other people's blather? Probably not. You'd like to find out whether anybody answered a question you asked, or asked a question you need to answer...but Twitter does not make that easy.

An early post at this web site affirmed that I didn't do Twitter. Well, now I do. It's been a great source of links and news stories, an easy way to keep up with breaking weather disaster news, a way to communicate with people in disaster areas, a safer way to share links that might be mistaken for spam, and potentially a useful tool for bill readers...but the new notifications system is seriously annoying.

Let's just say I've not found any candidates for the sequel to this book, lately.