50 Signs You're Addicted To Twitter
It has become a tradition to do a list when I hit a Twitter follower milestone.
In January of this year, when I hit 50,000 followers, I put out my 13 Golden Rules.
In July, when I hit 100,000 followers, I expanded the list to 100.
But today, my 150,000 follower milestone will be a bit different.
Today, my list is appropriately "50 Signs You're Addicted To Twitter."
1. Your "bathroom breaks" have increased by 140% since joining Twitter.
2. You've ignored incoming phone calls because you happened to be in the middle of composing a solid tweet.
3. You've reached the point of actually rooting for red lights while driving.
4. You curse when the lights turn green.
5. Your Klout score has suddenly become more important than your credit score.
6. Your Twitter anxiety level has an inverse relationship with the battery power bar on your cell phone.
7. You've caught yourself thinking, "If it isn't on Twitter yet, it hasn't happened."
8. When you say "watch the game," you mean "read tweets about it."
9. When you instinctively know how many characters a sentence is without looking.
10. You associate whales with Twitter more than with SeaWorld.
11. Whenever you play with your phone, the people you’re with automatically assume you’re tweeting.
12. You accidentally add "@" before your name when filling out official documents.
13. Even though your parents told you to never talk to strangers, you agree to a #tweetup with followers.
14. You judge others based on what URL shortener or photo-sharing service they use.
15. You judge people who include an underscore in their Twitter name because you know they were late to join.
16. You feel the need to secure a Twitter handle for your unborn child.
17. You get an adrenaline rush when your tweet comes to exactly 140 characters without any abbreviations or shortcuts.
18. You frequently check your unfollowers just to make sure a notable follower hasn't severed ties. A sigh of relief ensues.
19. You've unfollowed people who rarely tweet as a way of improving your follower to following ratio
20. When you pay $15 for in-flight Wi-Fi solely to keep up with your timeline.
21. You view Facebook as the VCR of social networking sites.
22. You start losing touch with your non-twitter friends
23. You've woken up in the middle of the night, replied to a tweet, and then had to explain the next morning why you were on Twitter at 3am.
24. After a good tweet you keep reloading your @ mentions hoping to see an RT pop up.
25. You know Jerry Seinfeld isn't THAT funny. Steve Martin still is.
26. When you go to extreme and slightly dangerous measures to get a TwitPic.
27. You convinced your grandma to get on Twitter.
28. When your mom says she saw Chris Rock in the mall today, your response is "TwitPic or it never happened!”
29. You've asked your waitress for hashtags alongside your eggs & bacon.
30. You schedule your Direct Messages.
31. You pull over on the highway to tweet.
32. When you don't check in, you constantly feel out of touch.
33. During games, your 2nd screen is the television.
34. You save your best thoughts for tweets; not conversations.
35. When you pull into your driveway, you sit in the car for a last Twitter smoke.
36. Twitter has become an essential life element. Food. Water. Shelter. Twitter.
37. You had a dream that you had dinner with a celebrity you follow.
38. Your @ symbol on your keyboard is starting to fade.
39. You have a backup Twitter app.
40. You submit customer service complaints to a company's Twitter handle instead of placing a call or writing a letter.
41. Your business card lacks an email address, but has your Twitter name in bold.
42. You get angry when someone calls out your Twitter addiction. The more addicted you are, the angrier you get.
43. You try to convert people to Twitter as if you work for Twitter -- and get paid a commission.
44. You still think adding "Tw" to words is clever.
45. You feel obligated to return someone's call or text because you know they've probably seen you tweeting recently.
46. When anything of significance happens, your non-tweeting friends say, "Are you gonna tweet about that?"
47. You are already thinking of 3 people to share this list with who are worse than you.
48. You've gone back on your TiVo to take a picture of the weirdest fan in the stands.
49. You say the word Twitter at least 10 times a day.
50. If 15 of these rules apply to you, you have a borderline addiction. If 30 of these rules apply to you, you are officially addicted to Twitter. If 40 or more of these apply to you, you are a Twitterholic. Go get some help!
Thanks to my Twitter-addicted team@burnSTYLEr, @nickbegley, @MerKenyon & @EliFromBrooklyn) for helping me brainstorm on this list.
Questions? Comments? SportsBiz@cnbc.com