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Who hasn’t heard of Twitter? Unless you’re living in a cave on Mars, you’re likely familiar with what is quickly surpassing both MySpace and Facebook as the most popular social network on the internet. So what makes Twitter so popular? Is it the celebrities that use it to update their fans on every second of their fabulous existences? Why do so many people become wrapped up in Tweets to the point where it’s more important than their real life interactions?

Is Twitter really better than real life? You bet! If you are a Twitter junkie like me, this is something you already know and have come to terms with. If you aren’t that far gone yet, it is only because you haven’t accepted the new “reality”, but you will soon…believe me!

So, here now are the top ten reasons Twitter is better than real life. Read, learn, and understand them – then sign up for an account or dust off the account you barely use and follow me! (@_chenault_).

10. It is impossible to ramble in 140 characters or less.

We all know people that just can’t stop talking. They say the same thing over and over and expect us to listen. I, myself, am guilty of doing it often. Twitter cuts out the blah, blah, blah and forces you to get to the point.

09. TV and movie characters have Twitter accounts!

The best fictional character account I’ve seen on Twitter thus far is without question Doctor Fitch Cooper (@DoctorCoop) from the Showtime series Nurse Jackie. Fans of the show are treated to teasers of plot lines by following Coop’s account with is frequently mentioned on, and has been the subject of an episode of, the actual show.

08. Twitter is simple and there are help guides if you can’t figure something out. Life? Not so much.

The most complicated problem you will run into with Twitter is understanding what everything means. RT means Retweet. That means someone else originally Tweeted the Tweet first. TT means Trending Topic. That means something is being talked about by a whole lot of Twitter users. If someone famous is really old and hasn’t been talked about in ages and they are suddenly a Trending Topic, they are probably dead. FF stands for Follow Friday. Users recommend people that their followers might like to follow. It is a Friday tradition. @ plus your user name means someone has mentioned you or sent you a message. # before a word or phrase means it is tagged. Hmmm, come to think of it, Twitter is a little complicated. It still has nothing on life, though.

07. Breaking news Tweets are better than the actual breaking news agencies.

More than once, a major news event has hit Twitter before it has hit the mainstream media. Twitter is designed for use on mobile phone which means anyone can update their followers from just about anywhere in the world at any time, including from the scene of earthquakes, terrorist attacks, plane crashes and any other number of events. How awesome is that!!

06. On Twitter you may be responded to by someone famous. This is unlikely to happen in real life.

I have been retweeted by John Mayer, Joe Rogan (@joerogan), Demi Moore, Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) and Kirstie Alley. It’s fun and exciting to talk to a celebrity even if it’s only one or two words. In real life, my coolness factor is not nearly enough to talk to any of the above so I take my glory in the Twittersphere as a sign that I’m at least cool somewhere.

05. You will never be as cool and popular in real life as you are on Twitter.

The number of followers you have directly relates to how cool you are. Okay, maybe not, but I choose to believe that so every time I see a new follower added to the list, I get a little excited. Sure, many of them are spam bots and are only trying to sell me useless crap, but that’s just fine with me. There are some great people on my followers list! (@ashleypei, @shard_dax, @kimmah003, @deathbox, @jdbeaner to name the top five coolest.)

04. Twitter saves lives – for real!

Recently, Demi Moore (@mrskutcher) and Nia Vardalos (@niavardalos) alerted police when a young man threatened to kill himself via a Tweet to Moore. The police arrived at the home in time and the man got the help he needed.

03. If someone Tweets too much and is generally an annoying pain in the rear, you can just unfollow them.

Yeah, try getting rid of someone who gets under your skin that easily in real life. It can’t be done, folks. It just can’t be done…

02. Following anyone in real life is called being a stalker and is frowned upon, but following someone on Twitter is a compliment and is encouraged.

Stalking is nothing to joke about, but am I the only one who thinks Twitter needs to come up with a less creepy name for ‘following’. ‘Paying attention to’ is too wordy. Being ‘friends with’ would be too encouraging to real creepy stalkers. I don’t have any suggestions. But I’m sure there must be something better than following.

01. Real life has Miley Cyrus. Twitter does not.

After a much talked about public exit, the Twittersphere is now a Miley free zone. Alas, nothing has yet been done about Justin Bieber but be patient. He is a teenager after all. I’m sure we’ll see a tear filled exit before long.

…and those are the Top 10 Reasons Twitter Is Better Than Real Life

So, I was making my way through the BST section of the DP forums, as I do everyday due to my lack of productivity (see the PS3 post), and I noticed a site for sale featuring celebrity twitterers, twitters, uh…twits. I’ve been seeing more of these celeb twitter behavior patterns lately, what with Ellen gushing on about all her bazillion followers every night, and Ashton letting the world know every second his wife takes a dump or has a lady cramp, but this was on a whole new level of dumb.

The site was organized so you could pick out your fave famous twit and see what they are up to every waking minute. What struck me as ironic was that these celebrities claim to want privacy, and even tweet about the paparazzi harrassing them, yet they become the attention post whores of the modern era from the comfort of their own home.

And it doesn’t matter who it is, but they all seem to be using twitter as just another form of promotion. One celeb only seemed to post about this cause or that one, while another (ok, it was William Shatner!) wants everyone to watch all his latest Star Trek appearances and then visit his daughter’s shopping website.

Now, I’m fairly certain that if I told you to visit someone’s website through a tweet that I would be ignored as a spammer, but if Capt. Kirk tells you to check it out, then hey! Let’s go!! Right?? I can just picture all the big celebrities endorsing products on Twitter already. Oh, the joy to follow!!

This may seem harsh to you, but I found the whole thing quite boring after 10 minutes. Sure, I succumbed to the burning passion of curiousity and looked around for a bit, just because I NEEDED to know what these famous people had going on that was soooo important that we all had to become their unabashed followers, but after a few minutes it was apparent that this was not a place where the intellect flourished.

All the celebrity twits were either plugging something, like one big spamfest of the rich and famous, or else they were engaging in what looked just like the fast and furious text messaging world of teenagers which, in the case of Miley Cyrus, actually makes sense. Either way, it became all rather ho-hum once I realized that none of these people had anything interesting to say.

It’s too bad. I was kinda hoping Britney Spears would chirp to us about the meaning of life. Now THAT I would tweet, er…twat…uh, whatever!