Twitter is it worht it

Yesterday it was reported that two GB athletes had received nasty abusive twitters.

This got me thinking that If I was managing either person I would not allow them to use twitter whilst still in competition. I think the whole twitter thing has got out of hand, the bbc seem to be encouraging it.

Personally I don't get the whole twitter thing although I do have an account but never use it. I think FB is bad enough with people posting inane drivel on it but twitter is even worse, why do people feel the need to pour out their thoughts and emotions to the world especially celebrities and sports people. It just lays them open for abuse.

Your thoughts.

 do you use twitter and do you find it empowering

or do you, like me, not get it.

Twitter is useful if you use it to follow businesses, news, people you're interested in.  I recently culled a load of people from my "Following" list, most of them friends.  I'm with you on people posting drivel, so I don't follow people who do that.

Dorset Police needs a proper shoeing over this Tom Daley bollocks.  Twitter is just "down the pub" talk.

Facebook is where you learn to hate the people you know.  Twitter is the place you learn to love the people you don't.

Then again, I don't understand Facebook.  I have a Google+ account and I mainly follow photographers, technologists and Richard Branson.

I see that a 17 year old has now been arrested. This it where it all gets a bit silly on both sides. Its like school yard name calling then going to your dad.

This arrest over the Tom Daley stuff is bollocks.  This is far more serious and aboslutely no action was taken: clicky

I don't get (or use) twitter.

I'm not interested in any celebs or sportspeople's daily lives, and when I want to know what my friends are up to I ask them!

I don't do facebook much, either.  I'm more of a actual contact person.

I can't see your link at work, apparently twitter is blocked.

I just don't get the twitter whilst still competing, should they not be abit more focused rather that posting stuff.

 Maybe I am just an old fool who doesn't get the whole social network need to keep everyone uptodate with what I had for lunch, thing. 

Social networking takes the social out of networking, FWICT.

This is the link that wouldn't work for you:

I think the arrest was because the person in question started making statements that could be read as death threats to Tom Daley and a couple of other people who had been sending supportive messages. One of the nastier tweets that I saw was along the lines of "I'm going to stab you, I know where you live" ... whether he gets charged and convicted is a different matter, afterall the guy that was convicted after tweeting he was going to bomb Robin Hood airport had his conviction overturned recently.

I have to monitor a Twitter feed at work. It is uniformly and invariably drivel. Just drivel. The electronic equivalent of blokes in a caff swapping jokes and banter.

It is very very occasionally useful as a source of tip-offs, but even then the lack of any controls means you cannot rely on it.

If I didn't have to do it at work, I would have no contact at all with Twitter and my life would not be any the poorer for it.

I call twitter Brain Fart. Basically any idiot who you don't really care about can do a brain fart on twitter for the world to see. It seems to be used as a means to slag people off and moan a lot. Rio Ferdinand just got done (Should these footballers be allowed to speak their mind where impressionable young kids listen? A Majority of them are pretty useless human beings) and the whole Tom Daley thing was bang out of order. We live in a world where for some reason people care about what these so called celebrities do and say.

Something I saw the other day sums it up  'I nearly forgot to put my last workout on twitter, what a waste of a workout that would have been'

I got enough to worry about in my life, my wife my work and family. I couldn't give a s""t about what so and so from the only way is Essex had for breakfast. GET A GRIP PEOPLE!

As for Facebook, the most evil thing invented. Probably the biggest marriage breaker ever made!!

Yep I'm with you on that twiiter and facebook all a load of old drivel however saying that isn't this a similar thing??

I like Twitter and Facebook.... especially the drivel

Schmunkee - I think we can assume that Tom saw the first tweet (the one about his dad that all the papers are reporting) because he retweeted it. Surely a PR team would ignore it or quietly report it as offensive to Twitter without drawing attention to something so hurtful.

I don't know if Tom saw any of the more sinister tweets that followed it, I'd hope that he had blocked that account by then. It was obvious that Riley (the person sending the messages) was a huge attention seeker, lots of abusive controversial messages followed by "if I get x retweets I'll leave twitter". Yes, Riley probably is just young and stupid and didn't seriously mean that he would kill someone, and I doubt he will be charged, or if charged, will be convicted because the latest case law goes against that; but I can't help feeling glad that he's had a rather brutal wake up call.

You can be young, loud and obnoxious and that's fine - most people were like that when they were 17, but when you cross the line into behaviour that can be considered criminal don't be surprised when there are consequences

Twitter is a communications vehicle.

You can find people who talk crap, and talk crap back to them, if that's what you want to use it for.

You can find people with a specific, narrow interest, and communicate on that interest with those people, if you want to do that.

Personally I have several twitter logins, so I can communicate on a particular interest to/with a particular set of friends under one login, and communicate on a different interest to a different set of friends under another login.The people I add as friends there are in the dozens rather than hundreds.

To knock Twitter because some people use it rather stupidly is like knocking cars because some people can't or won't drive properly. Used intelligently, Twitter is a wonderful tool. Especially to share internet links within a group sharing a particular common interest.

I personally love twitter. It's a great way to communicate with brands, find out about breaking news, discoveri deals and discounts in shops etc and actually communicate with like minded people or just follow them to see what they are up to. The whole abusive tweet with Tom Daley was really appauling but as the internet expands and social networking becomes more popular so does bullying which is the really sad thing about it all. Anyway, going back to why I love twitter... I follow a bunch of athletes (professional and otherwise) and they are always tweeting interesting training tips, motivational comments and inspiring words of advice. It's these tweets that often get me out on a run on days I really can't be bothered!

I don't do twitter. Period.