Top Ten Ways to Know If You're Addicted to Twitter

Or: Why Twitter Is The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Only Children

Hi, my name is Lauren and I am an alcoholic.
Wait, I mean, I'm a Twitter addict.
I forgot which blog post this was for a second.

I love Twitter.
I'm so infatuated with Twitter that my imaginary boyfriend hypothetically found me holed up in my room this weekend, pant-less, with the glow of my computer screen accentuating the glimmer of drool running down my chin. He asked me what I was doing and I lied and told him that I was watching porn. HAHAHAHA I LIED!

There was a time when I hated Twitter though. In fact, I wrote a poorly-composed blog post about it. To me it was like reading Ikea instructions. At first I was all like, "F yeah! I'm going to make this really neat-o Swedish asymmetrical thingy!" and then after trying to decipher instructions that looked like they were in a foreign language but were actually in English and graphics that looked like a 6 month-old monkey drew them, my voice dropped an octave and I started screaming, "I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS GOD FORSAKEN WHORE OF A COFFEE TABLE!" and made a crucifix out of the cheap plywood and simulated questionable acts with it.

Twitter made no sense to me. It seemed like it only made sense to people who get easily distracted by squirrels.

So, what got me over my Twitter hump? It was while managing the Twitter account of my former employer that I began to understand Twitter's generous offering to the world. I realized it's grassroots marketing benefits for small businesses and how it applied to me and my blog. I began meeting so many wonderful people on and offline through Twitter. I also discovered what interesting and thought-provoking content is passed through Twitter every millisecond! I was completely enamoured and our relationship has been rock solid ever since.

However, sometimes I worry that our rapport may be a little too rock solid. I fear that Twitter is starting to interfere with me and my fake boyfriend's relationship.

If you have these same fears too, then check out my checklist below for figuring out whether or not you're addicted to Twitter.

Top Ten Ways to Know If You're a Twitter Addict

1.) An event or conversation will occur in real life and the first thought that comes to mind is, "How will I best be able to translate or embellish this impressionable event/convo on Twitter?" You also secretly hope that no one who was actually there in real life sees your embellished tweet and publicly calls bullshit.

2.) You keep a running list in your journal of events or conversations for tweeting later...because you will forget to use them later...because Twitter gave you onset ADD.

3.) You are introduced to people in real life and realize that you already know them from Twitter and that no matter what they say their name is, you'll forever remember them by their Twitter handle.

4.) Your Twitter list titles consist of, "People Like Me", "People Who Like Me", and "People Who Make Me Feel Better About My Low Self-Esteem".

5.) You wish you had a time machine so you can go back into time and show every who made fun of you in high school how many Twitter followers you have.

6.) You view Twitter as an excellent public forum to tweet cryptic messages to ex-boyfriends/tweet song lyrics that don't actually reflect your mood to confuse ex-boyfriends/post pictures of you dog/post pictures of you and your dog in bed/post pictures of you in bed/post pictures of you tweeting cryptic song lyrics to ex-boyfriends with your dog in bed.

7.) Your life feels a little more validated, your heart a little fuller, and your groin a little tinglier after you see the "So and so is now following you on Twitter!" email pop up in your inbox.

8.) You constantly hit "@mentions" because you're too impatient to wait for the alert to pop up...because Twitter gave you not only ADD, but possibly Tourette's and Asperger's too.

9.) Twitter has done such an excellent job of teaching you to be concise that now all of the college papers you turn in are 140 characters or less.

10.) You ask your Twitter followers for medical advice.

Tell me in what ways you think you're addicted to Twitter.
Follow me on Twitter here!