Is popular Twitter the city’s new addiction?

To tweet or not to tweet? To check your timeline or not to check it?

These are the biggest conundrums users face once they subscribe to the microblogging sitecalled Twitter.

A first-time user of the service might be shocked to see that many of the people they are following on Twitter upload 14-character messages about happenings in their lives with both regularity and alarming frequency.

However, most Twitter users think that this is perfectly normal. In fact, many think writing such messages is one of the best ways to kill time.

“I check my Twitter timeline every minute just to check out what is going on out there and what my
followers are tweeting about,” Heppy Hapsari, 28, an employee with a private company, told The Jakarta Post recently.

Heppy said she was more than happy to consider herself a Twitter addict, someone who woke up
in the morning and logged on to the site to find out what others were tweeting about while she had been signed off.

Life should not be like this.

When she set up a Twitter account less than a year ago, she did not expect the service to be such a distraction, but soon she found herself getting updates about what was new with the Korean and Japanese soap operas that she and her friends were fond of.

And, 15,000 tweets later, she is finding herself struggling to ween herself off of Twitter.

“If I were not addicted to Twitter maybe I could finish my work faster, but it is difficult to fight the urge,” she said.

The addiction aside, Heppy said Twitter was now her primary means of communicating with the outside world. “Twitter is my ‘trash can’ into which I can aim all of my complaints about everything. But it is also the means by which I can get information, and get to know the characters of other people.”

For some, Twitter is a tool that helps them accomplish their work. For journalists Indira Rezkisari, 30, and Ajeng Dewanti Aggraini, 27, Twitter is the place to receive tip-offs.

“Twitter is very helpful in giving us information early,” Indira said, who can check her Twitter account every five minutes.

Logging on to Twitter is especially helpful when she is waiting for an interview or a press conference, she said.

But her Twitter addiction has taken its toll on her. “On three occasions I almost burned down my kitchen because I was too busy checking my timeline while cooking.”

Ajeng said she found Twitter useful. “News travels fast on Twitter so it is easy to distribute news on. Also, there are so many news makers on Twitter.”

Being a Twitter addict has also served Ajeng well. “I also got many side job offers you know,” she said.

In a survey conducted by the social media monitoring outfit comScore, Indonesia ranked first in the world in Twitter penetration, with 20.8 percent of Internet users in the country using the service.

In a previous report, comScore said Indonesia was the third-biggest Twitter country, with the third-most users in the world after the United States and the United Kingdom.

Earlier this year, an online tracking outift, Sycomos estimated that there were more than 5.6 million Twitter users in Indonesia.

So is Twitter a distraction or a productivity tool? You be the judge.

photo caption:

JP/R. Berto Wedhatama

What’s the story: An office worker juggles two activities, working on a spreadsheet while checking his Twitter account. Twitter users in the city have complained about declining productivity caused by being continually engrossed in their Twitter accounts.