My Important is not as Important as your Important

Last week, I wrote about social networking sites, especially Facebook and the surprising fact that Twitter is the most popular SNS (social networking site) in Japan.

I think a major reason why Twitter is popular around the world is because it limits how much people can write - 140 characters.

That’s good news for busy people, they don’t have to write as much… or read as much of what ‘important’ things people have to say.

The fact is, my ‘important’ and your ‘important’ may be different. For some people on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram among other sites - might be pictures of pets, food or friends. On Twitter you can post a few photos a day. On Facebook, I’ve seen people upload more than 100 images in a single post!

That’s where Twitter is better. You have to think about what you post. On Facebook, there is no limit and you can write as much as you like, and post hundreds of pictures. I have seen posts with similar images, some out of focus and some which don’t appear to be important… to anyone.

When I look at Facebook, I find that I spend a lot of time scrolling past things that aren’t important to me. I have a lot of friends, and if every friend posted once a day, I wouldn’t have time to look at everything posted on my Facebook page. I use Facebook as a means to keep my friends in one place and see what they are doing - not necessarily every day. I’m not a stalker.

If I used Twitter, I think I’d go crazy. It’s just not important for me to know that every day you’re having a coffee (in Paris) and playing with your dog (in Cape Town).

I try to write about what’s important to my friends, so I post once every two weeks. It’s important for me to be discreet. 

Countries where Facebook isn't the most popular social networking site

Well, lunch is finished and the avocado seed is drying in the sunshine. It's a beautiful day outside and what am I doing? I'm inside on my iMac.

As I wrote before, I spend some time on Facebook. However, maybe not as much as some people. I read recently (on Wikipedia) that university students spend up to two hours a day on Facebook. Perhaps it's because university is when you spend more time socialising with friends.

Facebook is the most popular social media site in the world. Certainly in the Americas (from Canada to Argentina), Europe, Southeast Asia and Oceania. Northeast Asia is a little different. In China, the most popular site is called QZone, it has 645 million users. How about Japan? Well, the most popular site is another American social networking site called Twitter.

Twitter is unique in that users are allowed only 140 characters. In English, that would be 140 letters. Which is less than the number of characters I've used to write this paragraph.

Japanese is a little different since the phonetic alphabet called hiragana/katagana has one symbol for one, two or three letters. For example, the word avocado (7 letters) in Japanese is アボカド (a-bo-ka-do - four letters) which means I've saved three letters on Twitter. The Chinese characters called kanji are even more efficient. As we know, an avocado is a fruit because is has a seed, and fruit is 5 letters. In kanji it is two letters 果物 - . So we saved three letters, a Twitter saving of more than half in Japanese!

Iran is another country where Facebook isn't the most popular site. In Iran, people communicate using Facenama. I think that someone in Iran knew about Facebook before they 'created' their social networking site. Now, look up the meaning of nama in Japanese - 生 and have some fun with the Iranian site's name. 

Uncooked face anyone?