Is twitter and facebook even important?

[BoB Sir Dylan]

I find myself spending so much, so so much of my free time just browsing down my facebook home and looking on my twitter. I'm 17 now so I don't really use facebook actively (like write status etc.), I only use it to go on messages and message my friends. But I do still go on the home page sometimes and use up hours of my time looking at completely pointless stuff, like funny memes, videos, other peoples popular status's who I don't even know. And also, my facebook seems to be completely crammed with so called 'friends' I have about 900 or something, but I don't know loads of them! The people that are actually my true friends in my year at school don't even use facebook anymore, pretty much my whole year just uses twitter. There's tonnes of random school kids that use it everyday, they're the age I was when I did the same. I've already activated a thing on my google chrome that blocks facebook apart from the messages and my profile page, but when I go on sometimes it doesn't work and I forget about it and end up looking at random stuff for hours on end again.

As for twitter, i use that pretty much everyday. I will write between 1-5 tweets a day I would say. I am following like 170 people and have 215 followers, but like facebook, alot of them are random 'follow back' accounts that post random stuff that is nothing to do with my interests. I would say like 80 of my 'following' are these accounts, so like 90 must be real people I know. I post tweets about myself, and some about general things, and also post lyrics to my favourite rap songs (lil wayne) and videos and funny pictures. Alot of my friends don't even have twitter though. Some people I know use it everyday.

Even the news gets me, I will look for hours at supposedly 'breaking news' articles, but at the end of it, I will have realised I could've spent the time doing productive things for my own benefit (eg. Tidying, revising, going out with my friends) but instead, I just wasted it!

I find it SO hard to understand what IS important and what ISN'T important! The two things get muddled together all the time and I end up putting my studying, family and friends second!

So, are these social websites even important? I'm studying my a-levels at the moment, and I think twitter is okay but facebook is just annoying! What should I do, block them both? Leave one?
It's so hard to stop myself from spending hours on the interent looking at pointless crap! Just to add, recently I lost my brother and best-friend and was diagnosed with aspergers, and under all that hard news I may have been rejecting studying and just spending the time 'in dreamland' if you may, just wondering around on the interent for days and days without a life, and without even noticing it.

(I used to always go on my xbox and play COD: BLACK OPS but I've unplugged it now to help me study)

so the question is, what should I do and how should I do it? What is important and what isn't?

[Light]

For some people it's very important part.It help them to connect with the whole world.In the world of social networking and multimedia it's very important.People can write,read and like other status and follow them if they like.It's for time pass for some people.

[Chickita]

When you send general tweets about yourself, do you like embellish it a little to make it more interesting? that is what everybody is doing on these social networks, making their lives seem a lot cooler than it is.
I canceled my FB and never had twitter, my one online vice is yahoo answers, but I don't know anyone on here, so no ties whatsoever. If you feel your social networking is having an adverse effect on your daily life, deactivate your accounts, you will be surprised at how easy it is to re-activate if you ever have the need to, so don't feel anxious about that.
Your a levels are very important to you, do what ever it takes to take away the distractions that stop you from studying, your future depends on it.

[Big Mo]

It is just entertainment for me. Something to do when I am bored.

[Adrian]

Well done Bob Sir Dylan

I can hardly accept that challenging the relevancy of twitter and facebook is earth-shattering, but it does say that you are moving in the right direction.

My 17th year was a watershed in my life - we didn't have personal computers and XboXs in those days - we had rock'n'roll - dance marathons - pretty girls in huge fluffy petticoats - and we boys with a different pair of shoes for each evening of the week - heck - some boys had a different girl for every night of the week - but not me

It was the year I met the huge fluffy petticoat I was destined to marry and am still with 51 years later - it was the year I borrowed enough money from her father to buy a ring and we got engaged - it was the year I obtained a promotion to secretarial draughtsman to a major regional committee of county surveyors in a design competition to devise a pragmatic town and country real estate management project and programme to attract a globally-important socio-economic development to our region to improve the health, wealth and happiness of our population - which we did and the project kept me busy for the remainder of my working career until I retired three years ago after winning the highest global accolade I could ever have imagined though I never did anything for accolades - what I did, I did for love - love of god - love of queen - and love of country - the cheesy stuff that no-one appears to place any value in any more - but hey - they are my values - I couldn't give a monkeys for the rest of the world - if they want to go to hell in a hand basket that's up to them

So why have I said Well done Bob Sir Dylan - well I come from a bizarre background which led me to manifest a fairly bizarre life - not many get to obtain the same professional qualification at age 15 as George Washington obtained at 17 to become the first indigenous officer of the British Crown in all of the Americas and to work with military intelligence spooks from the UK, USA and EU at all, let alone as early as 16 as I did - and I'm receiving paranormal sensations from you Bob Sir Dylan that you are indeed at the same kind of watershed I encountered though obviously your world and your place in it are completely different to mine when I was 17 - nevertheless I am sensing that we are comrades in this pilgrims progress we are all stuck in here on earth, striving to reach the city of gold we've read or heard about but never set eyes on

Well - some of us have never set eyes on it - but some have, and lived to tell the tale - you'll see from my autobiography, Dafydd Bach: Death of Innocence (My Life of Autism and Asperger's Syndrome: Dafydd Tomos, Hyswain), that I spent a lot of time there in my infancy, childhood and early teens - a full 48 hours on one pretty momentous occasion - though I am a bit reticent to talk about it because I signed the official secrets act when I was 17 to take the post as the secretarial draughtsman and did a lot of my secret work there because that's where all my gurus, guides, mentors, saints and heroes lived at that time - and, indeed, still do

So why am I telling you this? Well, its because of the somewhat understated psychological state you presently find yourself in - I'll copy'n'paste it here to lift it out of the whaffle you have tried to hide it in - "recently I lost my brother and best-friend and was diagnosed with aspergers, and under all that hard news I may have been rejecting studying and just spending the time 'in dreamland' if you may, just wondering around on the internet for days and days without a life, and without even noticing it"

Therefore I am going to answer your questions "so the question is, what should I do and how should I do it? What is important and what isn't?" in relation to that psychological state - not social networking sites twitter and facebook

All of the answers you need about your brother and your best friend, and what is important and what isn't, can be found in books, believe it or not - books that tell of experiences of people like me came to tell others about it - I'm reluctant to speak about it, both for the reason I have already said, but also because one person, on his own, isn't often regarded as a very reliable witness, simply because he could have been off his face on drink or drugs at the time - no - I'll just inform you of books by other authors - an academic researcher, Celia Green - a media man, Bob Monroe - a physicist, Tom Campbell - and a neurobiologist, Eben Alexander - and if this bunch don't tell you where your brother and best friend are, and what is important and what isn't, then I'll eat my hat

Put away your childish toys, twitter and facebook, and see what is important and what isn't, hear what your brother and best friend are saying to you.