Lemondrop

Even before Andy Milonakis ribbed over-sharing in "Let Me Twitter Dat," I was guilty of being an official Twitter addict. As with any drug, there are rules to using, all of which serve one purpose: to avoid boring or annoying the hell out of everyone else.

Under-sharing, v. The practice of maintaining a social networking account with occasional and increasingly random updates.

Infrequent tweets help no one. For those of you that only tweet once in a blue moon, usually when you are really pissed (ex. "WTH are these idiots in the Express Lane! The sign clearly reads 10 items or less."), just stop. Few people care about your random rants; pick up the phone and call the people who do.

Elaborate, in 140 characters or less. Others might tweet often enough (once or twice a day), but can only muster the energy to include three or four word updates. The fact that purple crayons make you happy is uninteresting to most.

Bubble-Tweeting, v. Twitter updates about people, places or things that no one else knows or cares about. Almost always done from a cell phone text-messaging system.

Give a little context to your tweets. "People in the suburbs are so bitchy!" Err ... OK. What's going on? Did something crazy/weird/funny just happen? Give us something other than seven words.

Be social. Twitter isn't just a place to rant your frustrations into cyberspace. Get a WordPress blog for that. At its best, Twitter is a conversation between millions of strangers. If you want to throw out random tweets to no one in particular, do it sparingly.

Angry Potty-Mouth Syndrome, n. An affliction that results in a constant stream of mean-spirited, meaningless, WTF-filled tweets.

Clean up your updates. Everything isn't always rosy in Twitter-mouth, we know, but every other word should not read like you're having a Turretic attack. WTF, STFU, LMAO and other acronymic swears are, of course, exempted.

Destructive Re-Tweeting, v. Reckless and unnecessary repeating of another person's tweets.

Re-tweet with caution. A link to a cool story or an alert about an interesting local event? Worth a re-tweet. "I just ate a banana nut muffin"? Not worth a re-tweet. Of course it's totally up to you what you find interesting, but by and large, so-and-so's life update shouldn't make the cut.

Whitney tweets and blogs from the Washington, D.C., area. For a good time call @BadGirl1016.