What Not to Tweet

Twitter: the 140 character messaging service where you can share as much or as little of your life as you want. Everybody's at it, from the communication executive of a multinational to your Granny, if you haven't heard of Twitter you must have been living in a cave for the last 4 or 5 years. Twitter is now one of the most popular social websites, and like anything popular, it can often be abused by people who just don't have a clue. In order to help the said clueless Twitter users, I have put together a list of nine things you really should not post on Twitter.

1- Do not tweet your bowel movements: Don't be like the Irish celebrity who recently posted on their Twitter account the fact that they had their first bowel movement in 4 days. Nobody cares, and you will be embarrassed when you read your Twitter page a few days later.

2- Do not tweet about dogs pooing in your garden: I admit I am guilty of that one but instead, politely pay a visit to your neighbours (preferably the owners of the dogs that have been fouling your garden) to let them know about the problem. If your neighbours tell you to f*** off and hit you over the head with a baseball bat, then maybe you can share your story after recovering from brain damage.

3- Do not tweet "Good morning" or "Good night". If you have nothing interesting to post on your Twitter, go for a walk or just go to bed, you don't have to tell the world about it. Also, if you live in a different time zone as some of your Twitter followers, they'll think you're just a nutcase for saying Good morning to them when it's 3pm where they are.

4- Do not tweet what you've had to eat: who care if you've been eating a slice of carrot on a bed of rocket salad leaves? Get a life and let me eat my greasy double cheeseburger and chips in peace. Unless you are posting a link to a really good recipe that I might want to try myself (no posh lean recipes for skinny people please, I want real food!), then I really don't care.

5- Do not tweet affiliate links all day long: you may want to earn a few bucks online, but that is really not the way to do it: get a real website and post articles that I want to read all the way and if you're lucky I might buy something that you recommend if it looks like you have really tried it and if I think it may be useful in real life, but don't sweat it: I almost never buy anything online anyway.

6- Do not tweet about your sexual exploits: remember your mum, or even worse, your teenage son or daughter could be reading your updates. In the case of people having an affair, that goes without saying, get caught if you like, I will be the first one to call you stupid.

7- If you have been just ringing in sick at work, do your career a favour and do not tweet what a good time you had last night or how drunk you got. If you do, get ready to join the unemployment queues, because even if you were thinking of changing jobs, employers are bound to check prospective new employees' social media pages and see that you are nothing but a frolicking twat and a drunk.

8- Do not tweet that you have been cleaning your house; likewise, do not tweet that you haven't been cleaning the house: do you really need your mother in law to show up now and start inspecting your home?

9- Do not tweet that you hate someone and would love to see them disappearing from the face of the earth, even if it's Cardinal Brady. This is not to protect that person, after all if you hate their guts they must deserve it, but to protect you, because publishing the fact that you hate them gives you a motive that investigators could use against you if that person turns up dead one day. If you really hate Irish priests, a fun way to let out some steam is to join the Kicking Bishop Brennan up the arse group on Facebook.

These are just a few examples of things that would be better off staying out of your Twitter account, but of course there are many more useless things that you can come up with. In general when you ask yourself: "to tweet or not to tweet?", just think of what that tweet would look like in someone else's twitter page; if your first reaction is: "Who cares?", then chances are you will know what not to tweet.