How my use of Twitter has changed in 6 years

I signed up for Twitter in April 2009 to see why so many of my media colleagues were talking about the new microblogging service.
I was intrigued by Twitter, a short-message social network built around 140-character posts called tweets. But I was skeptical about its prospects as a business.
I initially used Twitter to promote my articles on Investors.com and my personal blogs. I later started documenting my travels, thoughts on TV shows, complaints about businesses, and random observations.
But always my main use of Twitter has been as a news feed.
I follow a limited set of news organizations, pop culture websites and pundits so I can have a manageable Twitter feed. I “follow” 25 Twitter accounts today. I legitimately follow them and scan just about every tweet they send.
Compare that to people who “follow” hundreds or thousands of Twitter accounts. They’re not following those accounts so much as liking them. That many accounts in a Twitter feed is unmanageable.
In the last year or so, I’ve noticed that I’ve done a lot less posting on Twitter. I still retweet a lot of posts with weblinks to interesting articles. But my use of Twitter for personal observations has gone down.
I still use Twitter to promote my IBD articles and blog posts. And I like to retweet and comment on others’ tweets. But I don’t write many standalone tweets any more.
There’s too much noise on Twitter already. I’d rather not add to it.

Photo: Twitter artwork in the company’s San Francisco headquarters. (Twitter photo)