I’ve decided to document a massively helpful change I recently made to the way I use Twitter. I don’t know how interesting or useful this will be to other people, but I hope it’s both.

In order to keep Twitter useful and manageable, and because there are quite a few people whose tweets I don’t want to miss, I recently halved the number of people I follow. My experience of Twitter changed dramatically, and for the better.*

But a couple of friends, including someone I’ve known for ten years, have written to me since, asking why I’m not following them any more. “Because you add no value to my stream,” I’ve replied.

Harsh, perhaps. But it’s true: just because you adore or admire someone doesn’t mean you should automatically follow them. Because Twitter’s not Facebook. Some of the people I follow online I’m not friends with in real life (and, in some cases, wouldn’t want to be). Some of the people I can’t get enough of in real life are mind-numbingly boring on Twitter.

For me, Twitter is:

• A way of letting people know what I’m up to
• A way of communicating quickly with people I work and socialise with
• A newsgathering tool
• A bit of fun

Just because I love you I.R.L. doesn’t mean I want to know what you had for breakfast. If your tweets add value to my life – for example, by being interesting, useful or funny – I’ll probably follow you. But it doesn’t mean anything bad if I don’t.

That’s all I had to say.

* For what it’s worth, I’ve found that 550 is about the right number for me. That sounds bizarrely precise, I know, but it’s based on the proportion of noisy people, quiet people and news feeds I follow. Your number will be different.

Now look here. We need to have a word about this retweet business. There are two things you should know:

1. Retweeting should not be read as endorsement or agreement.
2. Retweeting means you want others to see whatever it is you’re retweeting. That is all.

All I intend when I RT something is for my followers to see it too. That might be because it’s brilliant, but it’s just as likely that I’m taking the piss out of the original tweeter and want to expose them to wider ridicule, à la TweetingTooHard. Because that’s how I am.

There are, of course, disingenuous rascals who make a point of (deliberately) interpreting everything one retweets as an endorsement of the original. But they are normally missing the point on purpose. When I share something with my followers, that’s all I’m doing. Sharing it. Unless I append a comment.

At least, that’s my RT policy and I’m sticking to it. Just so you know.