Twitter has come to be probably the most commonly used social networking site. Nearly half of Twitter users view their profiles every day. Some of the users spend an unreasonable amount of their time on Twitter, whiling the hours away unnoticed, while chores to go unfinished, and even going to the extent of ignoring family and friends in the real world. Although a majority of the hundreds of millions of people use Twitter as a special networking device, it has several of negative impacts such as social isolation, communication problems, and health problems which profoundly impact the lives of the users. "The people drawn to Twitter are people on the cutting edge, the real nerds who are resentful of the fact that the general population have found and taken over Facebook" (Steve Dotto), host of Dotto Tech.
"Twitter lets me hear from a lot of people in a very short period of time," "wrote Robert Scoble, a blogger. While Twitter addiction disorder or Twitter addiction are not medically accepted terms, the actuality of addictive behavior on Twitter is a mounting concern for scores of Twitter users, and one that psychoanalysts are seeing more regularly in their patients. "If you have found that sharing, connecting and learning through Twitter has replaced all avenues of learning and communicating and in your life, it is a possibility that you have Twitter addiction disorder" "(Fenichel.). "Using Twitter for literate communication is about as likely as firing up a CB radio and hearing some guy recites ˜The Iliad,'" said Bruce Sterling, science fiction writer and journalist.
Twitter reduces the amount of time spent with significant people in one's life through frequent checking of profile updates and tweeting. "The qualities that make Twitter seem inane and half-baked are what makes it so powerful" (Jonathan Zittrain, Harvard law professor and Internet expert). Twitter can result to relationship problems as it exposes one's social life, for instance pictures of ex-boyfriends and girlfriends or flirting through direct messaging may cause tension in relationships.