09/05/13: Navigating a tweet stream

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

THE FIRST STEP in any program of recovery is to admit you have a problem. I can admit I have a Twitter addiction.

I started using the micro-blogging service — tweets are limited to 140 characters — five years ago. It was a way to quickly post things happening at various political events I attended.

Prior to joining Twitter, I carried a 5-inch palmtop computer everywhere. In the early days, there was little software to handle tweeting from a mobile phone. I recall that I also had to add text messaging to my phone’s plan in order to use the service.

There weren’t many folks on Twitter back then; my user number 15,961,546 puts me among the early adopters. Its use has exploded: There are more than 550 million users now.

It’s a great source for breaking news. I’ll never forget the night Osama bin Laden was killed. We knew it on Twitter before the president announced it. Television news anchors were literally reading tweets on the air.

As with anything, though, Twitter has its downsides. Rumors spread quickly. Unsubstantiated charges fly. Automatic posting of links to stories has become commonplace.

The “social” part of Twitter has diminished significantly, as more and more users are concerned only with self-promotion. Separating the noise from the news has become more difficult.

Last week, CNN political reporter Peter Hamby — aka Twitter user 5,336,752 — released a 95-page discussion paper on the effects of Twitter on the 2012 presidential campaign.

Hamby argues that Twitter is “the central news source for the Washington-based political news establishment,” a statement with which I agree.

But that isn’t necessarily a good thing. Hamby says that this medium has created a situation whereby the mainstream political press has been cut out of the election process.

“The speed and shallow nature of today’s political journalism has rattled elected officials, candidates and their advisors in both parties, from the smallest city hall on up to the top levels of the White House,” he writes.

Shallow, indeed. It doesn’t take long for the latest gaffe — real or perceived — to make its way through the Twitter-verse. Stories take on a life of their own, even if the premise turns out to be false. Being first is more important than being right.

But that doesn’t render Twitter completely useless. It is still the place where news breaks first, so it is the last thing I look at before I go to bed and the first thing I look at when I wake up.

But I’m starting to break my addiction.

No longer do I check Twitter multiple times an hour; in fact, I can easily go several hours between doing so. Part of that is because I’ve become much more discriminating in who I follow. I’ve pared down the list to avoid seeing the same “breaking” announcement from multiple sources. Anything that’s really breaking will show up in my timeline.

It is still the place where important information gets passed along.

I first read about Rep. Scott Rigell’s letter to the president on Syria there. Supreme Court decisions, IRS pronouncements, the latest polling — all hit Twitter first. Were it not for Twitter, I doubt if I would have even seen Hamby’s paper.

And I’m trying to do my part to cut down the noise. Although I have tweeted over 51,000 times, more of my tweets these days are about retweeting important things that I run across, reflecting my varied interests.

Except on football Sundays, of course, when I join in the fun of tweeting the games. In fact, weekends are the times when Twitter becomes what it used to be: a social platform. You’d be surprised at how many people turn into sports fans when their favorite team is playing.

Like any addiction, it’s what’s good about Twitter that keeps me going back.