Twitter? I hardly know her!

Some approve of it while others dismiss it. Some hate it and others are indifferent. Some have already loved it and left it, and others would be lost without it. Twitter is far less integrated into society than Facebook, but that has a lot to do with people's sheer lack of knowledge and understanding of Twitter's potential.

Twitter is one of the world's most popular forms of microblogging. Though it has been around since 2006, there are still thousands of new accounts created daily, making it a rival of Google+, Google's attempt at a social network.

The record of most tweets (Twitter posts) per second was broken Feb. 5, during Super Bowl XLVI, at a rate of 12,233 tweets. Things like this happen because programming on TV and the Internet are integrating sites like Twitter into promotions and advertisements in order to appeal to a broader fan base.

For many celebrities, Twitter is their way of bypassing the middlemen of the media in order to communicate directly with their fans.

Fans feel the same way; they love the fact that they can directly "follow," or subscribe to, and communicate with celebrities. Beyond that, the simplicity of this network makes it easy to find and follow interesting users; with no "friend" settings, other than an optional private account, the Twitterverse becomes their stage.    

Twitter is to social networking as the fun-size candy bar is to food. Each tweet must be 140 characters or less, which takes around three seconds to read. You don't have to deal with the irreverent abyss that is the Facebook news feed. And choosing to follow someone you went to junior high with is the same as tasting an occasional fun-sized Almond Joy: you quickly remember why you were never a huge fan.

But as soon as we are given something like this, we quickly encounter a problem, as we often do with services like this: there are some among us who seem to exist simply to make sure every member of society is full of regret and disgust after using any free public service. Case in point: public restrooms.

The most ironic part of it is that the individuals responsible don't realize they are to blame. On Twitter, the two main groups that repel the sane members of society from joining are Trending Topic Literalists and Liberal Hashtaggers.

Trending topics, or TTs, are the current most frequently mentioned words or phrases, typically identified by a hashtag, or #. It is rare to go a week on Twitter without seeing a trending topic tactfully breaking the news of the death of a famous person (usually "#RIPDeadPerson'sName"), typically Bill Cosby. Seeing this, most people would be a little skeptical; not hearing about it anywhere other than on Twitter would usually be the first sign of trouble as far as the legitimacy of that TT goes. But not for the TT Literalists; they immediately share every thought that makes its way into their self-absorbed consciousness, thereby adding to the rumors.

Another abuse of the hashtag is its blatant overuse. The Liberal Hashtagger can always justify their hashtags, but the justification soon becomes irrelevant to those of us being bludgeoned by what is most commonly a subpar attempt at wit. If not wit, it appears to be a word or phrase that clearly states what the author was trying to thinly veil throughout the first 120 characters, but was unable to do.

We must move beyond the argument that Twitter is just another cyber-soapbox; it has so much more potential than the other social networking sites it is so commonly grouped with. It can be a great source for news and information for people on the go. The issues that most people have with Twitter stem from the individuals using the network, not the network itself. Octave Mirbeau illustrated this idea beautifully, saying, "The greatest danger of bombs is in the explosion of stupidity that they provoke."