I honestly and truly wonder what it is that motivates many of you to be the 7,657,423,012th person to tweet a news item.
Do you really think that you’re the first to tell your friends and social network that Steve Jobs resigned? Or that Google acquired a Motorola division?
Do you not scan at least a few tweets in your Twitter stream to see if anybody else tweeted the “breaking” news you’re itching to share with the world?
Does being redundant and useless not bother you?
It would be one thing if you were linking to a source that maybe not everybody read (I linked to Josh Bernoff’s blog post, so maybe I’m guilty as charged as well). But when you link to a HuffPo or TechCrunch article, you’re providing a link to the same story that 7,173,147,882 people before you did.
I have a theory that addresses the wonder I expressed above: Attention-deficit disorder.
No, not like the medical community defines it. Not “the co-existence of attentional problems and hyperactivity.”
No, I mean attention-deficit as in: Doesn’t get enough attention, and needs to call attention to oneself.
If you’ve got other theories explaining this behavior, let me know. I really do want to hear them. Because I honestly believe that if I better understand this behavior, maybe it won’t drive me as crazy as it does.
Ron Shevlin's Marketing Whims 