The idea of lifestreaming has taken on new form with the advance of Twitter. Whether it has been fueled by ego-filled narcissism, extreme sociality, little digital self-filtering or vice-like addiction to the chirping bird, people are becoming very co-dependent on Twitter.
Like a bad relationship - when the "fail whale" comes up people, Twitter addicts, feel almost morally let down - but as opposed to having a fling on the side with Jaiku, Plurk or another microblogging platform - they always come back for more.
Face it. It's a Twitter addiction. So I've pulled together the top 32 ways to know when you're afflicted (and like any vice that has you under its spell, the best first step is admitting it!).
Please feel free to add more - by no means is this a small or proprietary list:
1) You Tweet more than 25 episodes/day
2) You Tweet while in/on the washroom stall
3) You Tweet at a live event/concert - perhaps increasing your Twitter authority at the expense of enjoying the event which you've paid $125/ticket for
4) You actually believe @the_real_shaq or @aplusk or @oprah care what you think
5) You Tweet after the airplane warning tells you not to
6) Most of your tweets end with 'just saying, IMO or LOL or :) or bff
7) Your keyboard buttons shift 2, shift 3 and shift 7 are barely readable given the wear and tear
8) You simply do not hang out with people that don't have a Twitter account
9) Insert major life happening (grad, birth of baby, marriage, funeral) - yes, you guessed it - live tweeting
10) You actually think people will scroll through your thoughts about Lost and your predictions where the plotline is going
11) You can't visit an event unless it's been hashtagged, "camp"ed or "up"ed
12) You make people aware that you were on Twitter more than 2 years ago and hate the fact the mainstream hordes are starting to hear about it now and ruining it for you and your 3 coding friends
13) Drunk twittering - any tweet replies after 4 drinks are usually bad news, you do them, you do them frequently and not just confined to Friday nights
14) The front page of your company's website is your Twitter profile
15) You communicate with your cubicle mate right beside you by tweeting
16) You snicker uncontrollably at work feigning that you stumbled by some funny random fact about the project you're working on...do you think us managers really fall for that?
17) Your feedback to people when negative typically has the word "FAIL" in it - said like capital letters too
18) Your very attractive girlfriend/boyfriend has dumped you over Twitter
19) You use Twitter apps. that show you how addicted you are to Twitter
20) You wear a gold chain with a big @ symbol and you don't even like rap
21) Business Card - no phone, no email, no web - just a big bad embossed @sellharder @savetheword @thereal(insert name here)
22) You've done a model shoot to get your Twitter profile shot and background - just perfect - so when people meet you they go - wow, i thought he/she was "taller, more hygienic, less goofy looking"
23) You tweet liberally about how much you hate Twitter and/or the weather
24) You check back every 10 minutes to your DMs to see if @guykawasaki @barackobama @coldplay @simoncowell @real_lebron or @scobleizer has actually got back to you (actually it's possible in the latter's case, he will)
25) Your bedroom wall has a loveable blue bird painted on it - next of course to cheesy Herb Ritts portraits and American Pie movie posters
26) You live tweet the action of a 14-inning baseball game
27) You've never kissed a girl (and no, facebook poking or following friday a women doesn't count)
28) You look down at Facebookers as the downtrodden unwashed majority, My Spacers as the stylistically challenged neanderthals, Live Journal users as digital relics, Tweetdeckers as a curious likable in-the-know sort, Bloggers as the boring social media academia and Branded pages on Twitter as Cerberus - the 3-headed guardian dog of hell
29) You not only write, but think in 140 character increments
30) In front of a screen or not, you always feel like you're being followed, or worse, auto-followed
31) You cannot come up with an original idea but you can aggressively retweet
32) You take an otherwise promising Sunday afternoon and blog and Tweet about Twitter....errr scratch that...that's me today @seanmoffitt
So forget about 5 neatly segmented poll result levels, you have ADD, you wouldn't have read the full poll legend anyway - simply, if you have performed or exhibit qualities of 5 or more of these above, it pains me to say this but you are a Twitter addict - a Nick Nolte of social media, a Pacman Jones of microblogging , the Johnny Rotten of SMS, the Richard Hatch of 140 character life drippings.
"Seek help now, don't wait, you are leading a false life, before it's too late, the antidote to getting out of your twitter funk can be found at http://tinyurl: " (oops, sorry ran out of characters) just say hi, anyways, Sincerely, Dr. @seanmoffitt ,Twitter MD
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