Twitter Applications

Twitter has become extremely popular during the last couple of years. Tweets range from everyday comments to vital information during emergencies and crisis. Thus, many mobile devices and computer applications have been created to facilitate tweeting.

Just to get an idea, I used an iPod touch and searched “tweet” under the App Store. There were at least 20 applications from which to choose and download. Some are free and some aren’t. I downloaded three applications: Twitter Inc, Tweetboard, and Tweet. The first is the website in a mobile form. It provides the exact same buttons as it does on the web. The retweet, #, and @ buttons are all included. Personally, I find this one to be the easiest to use out of the three. I might be biased in that it is the exact model I use online and prefer to keep the knowledge for both. In addition, it is quicker and provides the other tweets by scrolling upwards instead of having to reload a page or wait. In this application, one can also chose to unfollow or follow other tweeters.


The second model I downloaded to test out was Tweetboard. What got my attention for this app was the image of a sun and clouds; very colorful and inviting. Once downloaded, I noticed it was rather different than the Twitter Inc application. Instead of a list of tweets, it provided a specific amount of pages, each for one tweet. At the bottom there is a button provided so that one can scroll quicker, but I feel it takes up too much time and space. The page does provide a button for one to retweet and reply but only for the tweet on the page. In order to create a new tweet one must press the “New Tweet” button but it does not provide the symbols from the first application. It is more difficult to hashtag and reply to a fellow tweeter. Unlike the first app, Tweetboard does not include the following abilities: hashtag, geotag, shrink URLs, or use the photo library.


Tweetboard compared to Tweet, however, seems to do much better. Many reviews I read were upset that with every tweet a commercial after it. Some of the customers called it “Spam machine.” Others said the application would crash on multiple occasions. In my case, it wouldn’t download at first. After multiple attempts, I was finally able to access it. However, I was in the luck group of the “crashing incident.” I was unable to really test it out. Therefore, I went to the reviews. However, not all of the reviews were negative. Some really liked the features included and the price as well. But most of them found it too difficult to manage. One review said they need help finding the settings.

All in all, I prefer the Twitter Inc application. But there are other similar applications as well. It just depends how patient a person is and how often they use twitter in order to choose the right application for them.

Addictive personalities & problematic mobile phone use

A research study was done on addictive personalities and problematic mobile phone use in 2009. The study passed out 570 surveys; only 444 surveys were used. To set up the study, the researchers determined the traits that could indicate problematic mobile use such as gender, self-monitoring, and approval motivation. These traits are also indicative of addictions like alcohol, drugs, and internet use.

The study also examined and analyzed other similar studies done in countries like Australia and the UK. According to a different study done in 2005, it was noticed that technological advancements such as the ability to personalize ones phone by color, ringtone, wall paper, can enhance the over attachment one might feel with their phones. The investigators took this all into account and predicted that they could expect loneliness would be a high predictor of problematic phone use and addiction.

The predictor variables they used (independent variable) were as follow:

• · Gender
• · Self-monitoring
• · Approval motivation
• · Loneliness

The dependent variables used in this study include:

• · problem mobile phone use scale
• · The reported time per week spent using a mobile phone
• · The reported number of people the participant talked with regularly
• · The reported time per week spent writing/reading text messages
• · The reported number of people the participant exchanged text messages on a regular basis

After determining the mean, standard deviation, skews and all the mathematical part of the research, it was concluded that high self-monitoring was linked to addictive behavior, approval motivation had a close relationship with problematic mobile use but a weak relationship with time spent writing/reading texts, Gender was a weak predictor of problematic phone use, and loneliness could not predict problematic mobile phone use but could predict the overall use of the dependent variables such as time spent using a phone and writing/reading texts.

It was noticed that lonely people tend to be introverts and they tend to be less susceptible to problematic phone use. This is the complete opposite of high self-monitors who are extraverts who are susceptible to peer pressure.

I was impressed that loneliness could not be an indicator for addiction or problematic use. However, it did correlate with the dependent variable for the time used in texting, phone use, etc. The researcher concluded that future studies had to be conducted in order to fully comprehend the psychological traits that indicate problematic phone use.

The gender indicator, I also found interesting. There was a weak relationship among it and problematic use. But it was visible that females were more likely to experience more problematic use than males. The investigators inferred that cultural or ethnical backgrounds could influence addictive behaviors. When compared to an Australian study, this relationship was not visible. However, the relationship is visible in Asian countries. According to another study done in Japan, it was seen that females did not have such a high relationship with problematic phone use because of societal pressures on how women are supposed to behave.

Consequently, this study reminded me of the study I participated in my journalism class last semester. The study was conducted on 200 students. We were to go 24 hours without the use of any media. Phones, laptops, internet, newspapers, iPods were all included. I handled the assignment pretty well. I finished my class assignments on time and read half of a novel I had been meaning to start. I did not have any distractions and it felt pretty nice. I guess I can attribute my success to the fact that I’ve watched to many films about technological robots taking over the world and how we must not be so dependent on items like iPods and laptops. However, I probably was in the group of few people who enjoyed this experience. Most of my other classmates couldn’t handle it and broke the 24 hours. Some even stated that they went through light symptoms of withdrawal.

Our study was pretty successful and was featured in many news articles. The following link is one of them, and provides details about our findings.

http://bit.ly/bg2Bj3