By Chandler Walter, Editor-in-Chief
Who would have ever thought that 140 characters could cause so much joy, grief, laughter, and hate.
Twitter has been a staple in my life ever since I started punching those miniscule jokes/rants/thoughts into my Blackberry Bold. I miss that Blackberry.
Back then everyone I knew had a handle, everyone had their own take on what was trending (usually just beef between the different cliques; it was high school, after all), and everyone was active.
Flash forward to 2017, and my feed is filled with professional comedians, news publications, and only a few of those brave souls I actually know in real life that have held onto it for one reason or another.
If I wasnāt an active part of the media, professionally, I probably would have jumped ship a while ago as well. As much of a stake as I have in the appāsliding into my girlfriendās DMs three years ago was definitely a highlightāIāve found that it is usually the last social media square Iām clicking on while commencing my usual, brain-draining scroll.
It may, of course, be me to blame. The people Iām following could be whatās bringing it down; maybe it seems as though everyone I actually know has āleftā because they couldnāt put up with my own Twitter antics, and actually just blocked me; or possibly itās just a silly app that shouldnāt have a thought given to it, let alone 400+ words in a student newspaper.
Whatever the case, I know that Iām well and stuck in maintaining a presence with the bright blue bird. Twitter seems to have become a necessary app for journalists and the like as a way to communicate, keep up to date, and post their own articles for the world to see. I generally just RT things I find humourous, but we all should know by now that Iām not perfect.
On the surface, Twitter is amazing for what it is: Simple, quick, to the point. Where it fails is in the utter avalanche of opinions and ideas that come streaming out of it in a suffocating rush. It used to operate on a linear basis: things that were older were lower, and newer tweets were higher in the feed. Then it decided to pull a time-warp and place past tweets earlier, and āwhat you missed,ā āthings you might like,ā and, the worst offender of all, tweets from people Iām not following, but that have been liked by those that I am following; thereās an RT button for a reason.
With all of these new changes to the once-simple structure, the ever-updating nature of the app, and my own laziness as far as cleansing my following list goes, I am left with an onslaught of information that I barely ever have the time to wade throughāmeaning that most of the time I wonāt even jump in.
Which is too bad, because it was great in its prime.
In all honesty, though, Iām probably the one that has gotten stale.
