Inhuman Online Activities on Twitter

By Don Shetterly

These days I wonder about the long-term survivability of the human race.  Maybe that's not the best word to use, but I really wonder if we can sustain the human race in the era of inhuman online activity.

We're hit with auto messages of every type and flavor on Twitter.  I gave up on Facebook because I got tired of it trying to run my life with likes, shares, and the latest rants of the day.  At least on Twitter, I can mute words and boy do I have words muted!

However, everyone thinks that automated bots and replies are good.  Even Twitter does it.  Have you ever tried to contact Twitter help and support?  Good luck if you reach anything but their automated bots that give you canned responses.

I try to play by the rules on Twitter.  I try to genuinely make a difference on what I share on Twitter.  Yet, for some reason in the past two weeks, I've been locked out of Twitter.  In the first instance, I wasn't able to get it unlocked until late into the following day.  This more recent time, I was able to get it unlocked because they ACTUALLY called my phone (unlike the last time).

I just wish there were humans you could talk to that would explain why things happen.  Twitter so hates the automated bots, but yet they do exactly that which they despise.  They don't have any controls in place for stopping the porn and hate like they should,  yet they will slap you for some unknown infraction or mistake by locking your account.

Some days, it really gets old dealing with everything being automated.  I'm tired of my direct message inbox filling up on Twitter with all the "against the rule" spam messages that get sent to me, including TrueTwit spam messages.

No one seems to care.  No one wants to be human.  Everyone just wants to blast everything to everyone all day long.  That is not human.  That is inhuman.

Many times, I've tried to respond back to the automated messages, but I never get a response.  I scratch my head and wonder - then why send it to me?  You're nothing more than annoying when you do this.

I think we have to pull our heads out of our collective backsides and start to figure out how to at least be human.  Right now, we're failing ourselves and the world in the behaviors and activities we do.

If we keep going down the path like we are, places like Twitter and the users that spam people will degrade us to a point where inhuman will be the norm.  Surely we've got to be better than that.  Surely we've got to engage our mind, body, and heart together as one.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Top 10 Social Media Annoyances

Some days I scratch my head at what humans do.  Of all the brain cells that could function and make different choices, it seems that those brain cells must have fallen asleep.  These poor choices create annoyances on the internet.

I have compiled my top 10 online social media annoyances that I have found on both Twitter and Facebook.  In fact, I stopped using Facebook some time ago and it is like a breath of fresh air.  Twitter is almost as bad with these annoyances.

I really wish it was different where people could use social media for a balanced approach of good information, rather than seeing how much they can scam and spam everyone.  I know, there are some good people out there, but the bad ones far outweigh the good.

Top 10 Social Media Annoyances.

#1 Naked Pictures Doing Sex Acts

Don't call me a prude here!  That's not what this is about at all.  Its about having some of the most graphic sexual pictures show up on my news feed.  These aren't small pictures either so when they show up, you can't miss them.  If I am in a public place, it is very inappropriate and it more than crosses the boundaries.  Even if I am not in a public place, I really don't want to see this all day long in my feed.  Most of these people do get reported and blocked, but it makes me wonder why people think that everyone wants to see this.  It usually isn't a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence either as they plaster the news feed with them all day and all night.  Enough!  If that's all you are adding to civilization, you may want to rethink your role in humanity.

#2 Like My Other Social Media

I gave up on Facebook.  I got tired of so much fakeness on there and too much junk that was posted every minute.  Most of what is shared on Facebook isn't worth two seconds of our time.  Even the marketing people who value your time are the biggest time wasters on Facebook and Twitter.  They really don't offer much value, but they sure waste your time.  I don't do LinkedIn anymore either because I find the site ridiculous and hard to navigate.  When I add someone on Twitter and the only thing that they think is important is for me to add all their other social media sites, I have to wonder about them.  Why would I go to multiple social media sites to follow you.  Do you not think I have anything better to do with my day than that?  Again, I think it is a big time waster.  It is not good online marketing in my view, because when I see it happen, the individual is knocked down in my value list.

#3 Spamming The News Feed

Yes, I understand that you want to reach as many people as you can and not everyone is online at the same time.  However, when I see 5, 10, 20 posts one after another, I tend to completely ignore you and scroll past what it is that you are tweeting.  I'm sure we all have done this in a minor way, but I'm talking about the ones that must have drank 5 tall cups of coffee before coming on Facebook or Twitter.  There is more in a day to do than sit there and see this type of behavior.  If you have that big of an ego, then I'll do like I have always done and either "mute" you or "unfollow" you.  You're abusing the relationship I have with you online and that doesn't sit well in my book.

#4 TrueTwit Verification Nonsense

From what I can tell, using the TrueTwit verification service does very little.  Yet, I see it time and time again.  Maybe the people using this nonsense don't understand what the recipient gets, but let me tell you, it is an annoyance.  It is a nuisance.  I just ignore it now because if I followed you, then I want to read your posts.  I don't wish to jump through hoops to prove to you that I am a valid person.  Sorry, you are asking far too much from me and abusing the trust I have put in you to be on my news feed.

#5 The Fake Link

I get so annoyed by the fake link.  You've probably seen it also.  It is the link that you think will take you to something you might be interested to read.  The link that looks safe, but yet it is not.  It is the links that take you to some site that gets you to sign up for whatever it is that they are pushing.  Most of the time it has nothing to do with what they put in the post, but you don't know that until after you clicked on the link.  It makes me so leery to click on any links these days because I just got hit badly with malware.

#6 Overly Large Pictures

If I am reading my social media accounts on my desktop, the overly large pictures aren't such a problem.  If I am on my smart phone, then it becomes a bigger issue and annoyance.  I now have to scroll down past these.  Most of the time, the ones that post overly large pictures must think that one is not enough and so they post multiple pictures.  The pictures are posted one after another.  The larger the picture, the more difficult it is for me to read the other tweets in between because they almost get swallowed up by them.  Do everyone a favor and find some moderation.

#7 How Many Clicks Does It Take

I think back to the commercials of the lollipop and how many licks does it take to get to the center.  Recently, I had one that when I clicked on the link, it took me to a page without the information.  There was another link to the information that you had to click on.  When I clicked on that, it then took me to another twitter page with the same information as was in the original post.  I still don't know where the information was and I suspect it didn't exist.  It was just meant to get me to click.  What an annoyance!  I believe I rewarded that individual with an "unfollow" and that probably wasn't the result they were hoping for.

#8 Unsolicited Advice

I marvel at this one in real life and its also annoying online.  It happens so much.  The person that comes by and doesn't even read what you posted or an article you linked to or checked out your website, but boy do they have advice for you.  They are quick to tell you what you should do or should not do.  It doesn't matter if it applies or not, they will tell you anyway.  There are far too many noisy people who think they have all the answers.  If that were true, we would have no problems in this entire world!  Let your ego know that not everyone loves your unsolicited advice.  It turns people off and they most likely do like I do, click that unfollow button.

#9 Content Waste

Oh, those auto-generated articles on the internet that are such an annoyance.  If I wanted to read regurgitated content created by a program, I would read source code from a website.  It is such a waste of my time, but people who aren't creative, think that this is good marketing.  I'm sorry, but if you don't have something good to say, just sit in the corner and be quiet until you do.  I have no forgiveness for people who do this, because you are wasting my time and filling the internet up with trash.  Those that do this type of thing obviously do not value the people they are trying to sell to or get as a client.

#10 Pesky Questions And Requests

I am amazed at how many people send automated responses out and ask questions in them.  The thing is, if you respond, they never respond back.  I have gotten to the point where I am ignoring most of these things now which sucks if you're one of the good guys that doesn't do this.  If I just followed you, I'm not going to spend hours reviewing and critiquing your website for you to most likely disregard it anyway.  While you may think it is cute and intriguing to ask me some irrelevant question, I've found that you could care less if I am happy or what happened in my day or what topics I want to see you post about on your news feed.  Again, all these things are time wasters and they are not authentic.  They don't make me want to trust you.  In fact, they make me want to unfollow.

Final Thoughts

We are becoming a spam and scam society and with the internet, it makes our reach much more broad.  However, if you cannot be trusted and people see this in what you post, then you are not adding value to the internet.  You're not adding value to social media.  You are an annoyance.

Marketing is about offering something of value, not trying to get one over on the other person and make them click or cringe.  Marketing is about building relationships and showing the other person that you care enough to not waste their time.  Unfortunately very few online really understand marketing.

Try to offer value and information that others will be better for if they click and read what it is you share.  Make a difference by being authentic, not by being a scammer and spammer.  Its not hard to spot the ones that give little value to everyone who follows or subscribes to them.  Be human by being real.  The internet community will thank you!

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Top Mistakes Made On The Internet

At one time the behavior that we now see online would have been classified as horrible.  It would have been viewed as some website creator that had no clue what they were doing.  Now, our internet experience is made up of all those things that were considered poor website design.  The top mistakes are made by the novice to the experienced, from the small sites to the major sites.

The first top mistake I see is when you click on a link and you get to the page of the article you were hoping to read, but something stands in your way of reading it.  The page starts to load and you start to read it, but then the unexpected happens.  Okay, maybe now it is no longer unexpected.  The ads begin to pop up and take over the screen telling you that in so many seconds you can close them out.  Great, just the reason why I came to your page, so I could read your ads. 

The second top mistake I see is the immediate popup of a survey that you want me to take about your website.  So, before I have had a chance to view anything on your website, you want me to answer questions about your webiste.  Yes, that's the ticket!  That's the sole reason I found your site.  I could care less about your content because all I want to do is take surveys all day long.  This is the entire reason for my existence!  I can guarantee you what kind of answers I would give on your survey if I felt like completing it.

On to top mistake number three where the minute the page loads, the site wants you to sign up for their mailing list.  You might not even know who is behind the site or what they have to offer.  It might just be a link that you ran across.  Lo and behold though, the site owner thinks that you need to get another email in your inbox.  It is as if you don't already get enough spam in your email box the way it is, so let's sign up for some more.  Most email newsletters are not worth two seconds of my time.  Sorry if that offends everyone, but most email newsletters get deleted before I read them.

Top mistake number four is having a web that is so cluttered with so many options and articles and things to click on that you are overwhelmed and lost.  It is almost like website creators are hoping that if they throw enough stuff at the wall, you will click on something.  Unfortunately, it makes the site so confusing and hard to follow that I end up exiting the site.  Website creators have to consider what it is like for a first time visitor and from what I see, very few even think about this.

Top mistake number five is when there is keyword spamming on the page.  You might have found a link on social media or a google search and you go to the website, but nothing on it even resembles what  you were after.  In fact, it is almost hard to find the key search word that you were going for.  It wastes your time and it does not make for a good user experience.  If you think this is how you market and get people to your site to bring in revenue, you may want to look for a different job on the internet because you have completely missed the point.

These are only the top 5 that I can come up with, but by all means, they are not an exhaustive list.  There are far more things that are done every day on websites that should really make the creators and owners ashamed.  At one time, people respected their visitors, but these days it is one online scam and spam session after another.

I believe if you give people some quality content, they will reward you for it in the end.  If you are there just to try and pickpocket the visitors, I think most people will figure it out.  Yes, there might not be a way to measure that, but your visitors will surely see your intentions.

I'm sure that many website creators will not agree and they think their methods are the best.  They think that a mailing list of thousands of people is the way to go or popup ads is what people want.  I know, these things do net "sales" and "sales opportunities", but they really degrade the internet and I think they make you inauthentic at the end of the day.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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