Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, ironically told attendees at a conference this week that users should be careful not to spend hours on the social media site because it’s “unhealthy”. In addition to co-founding Twitter, Stone helped launch Blogger, Odeo, Xanga and the Obvious Corporation (a group that helps build and invest in new technology). It seems Stone has come to the realization — perhaps with the help of recent addiction studies — that the internet sensations he’s helped to create have some people so wrapped up in them that they just can’t put them down.
Stone is currently the creative director at Twitter and though he said, “Obviously, we want you to come frequently,” he seemed a tad disturbed by the long hours some Twitter users spend on the site. “I like the kind of engagement where you go to the website and you leave because you’ve found what you are looking for or you found something very interesting and you learned something,” Stone told the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal in Canada on Wednesday.
Some studies say that there will be 21 million Twitter users in the US alone by the end of this year — that’s just a part of the 100 million active users worldwide. That’s a lot of people, potentially spending a lot of time on a site which hits you with content at such a rate that it is almost impossible not to keep coming back for more. So, dear readers, we are sorry if our Twitter feed is making your addiction worse, and we encourage you to stop thinking about character limits and get out in the world in play.
Via The Guardian UK
Lead image by Mohamedn on Flickr
Twitter subscribers will increase in the middle east and especially Dubai in 2012 according to Khaleej times.