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Twitter - The good, the bad and the celebrity…

Twitter is currently taking the UK by storm - So what's it all about? Here are two very different views on the online micro-blogging sensation...

FOR

Have you ‘Twittered’ yet today?

If that means absolutely nothing to you, then where have you been hiding for the past few weeks?

Twitter is fast becoming the latest social networking craze that is taking the world by storm, and despite signing up less than two weeks ago, I’m already hooked.

You no longer have to face the ‘plenty more fish in the sea’ messages from Facebook friends after you change your relationship status to single, or the heart-stopping moment of seeing pictures of your ex-boyfriend with his stunning new girlfriend.

Instead, Twitter is a simple micro-blogging website that allows you to post short messages of absolutely anything that pops into your head, which your followers can then read and reply to.

But as well as keeping up with what your friends are doing, it has the added bonus of acting like a window to the lives of the rich and famous.

For the celeb-obsessed among you (OK, I admit it - that includes me!), Heat magazine is no longer your bible. Twitter has just made it so much easier to find out what your favourite star is up to.

Today for example, I have logged on today to find out that Davina McCall is being treated to a trip to Paris for Valentine’s Day by her husband, while Jonathan Ross had red mullet for lunch with his wife.

And Chris Moyles has spent the majority of this afternoon walking around London in training for his Comic Relief trek up Mount Kilimanjaro , taking the occasional photo to post on the site as he goes.

I can kiss goodbye to my social life though as my Sundays are now spent logged on to keep up to date with the happenings on the set of Dancing on Ice, thanks to the Philip Schofield’s updates live from the ice rink.

ITV even bought the ‘silver fox’ a laptop so that he can also keep his followers updated on what’s going on behind the scenes at This Morning each morning.

Where else can you get this kind of insider information on celebrities without being branded a stalker?

So forget Facebook, Myspace and Bebo - there’s a new kid in town.

AGAINST

I’m in two minds about Twitter – on the one hand I love celebrities and welcome the opportunity to learn more about their insane lives, but on the other I find it inconceivable that these people haven’t got better things to do with their time.

I devour celebrity magazines; I jump straight to the Bizarre section of the Sun and 3am in the Mirror to follow the latest gossip; and I watch any Z-list celebrity based reality TV programme going. So I’m not saying I wouldn’t be interested to find out that Philip Schofield has taken a ‘snow day’ from This Morning, or to see pictures live from the Chris Moyles studio.

But don’t you think it is slightly ridiculous that well respected celebs such as Philip Schofield and Stephen Fry are on Twitter every five minutes with stupid updates like “Aha! A vehicle awaits to take me to a costume fitting” or “supper is on the table and I'm chuffing starving”.

Am I really so desperate to follow their tragic lives that I need to know when they are waking up, eating, going to the toilet?

Have these well paid celebrities (who by the way earn thousands of pounds more than you and me) really got nothing more interesting to say or better things to do with their time?

And on the subject of pay – doesn’t it rile you a little bit that Chris Moyles, who is reportedly paid in excess of £600,000 a year, has plenty of time during his radio show to ‘twitter’ with all and sundry about newsreader Dom’s bald head?

In the name of research, I have spent a couple of hours trawling through the Twitter website, looking at the entries made by various celebrities.

And I’m saddened to find out they are just as boring as I am and their entries reveal little about their ‘exciting’ celebrity lifestyles.

I’m truly disappointed to find out that the ‘Schofe’, who I have adored since his days with Gordon the Gophur in the broom cupboard, has nothing better to do with his time than build snow balls.

It irritates me that funny man Moyles, earning thousands and thousands of pounds for being the so called “saviour of Radio One”, isn’t spending his spare time working on his precious radio show.

And I can’t believe Holly Willoughby chooses to inform everybody that she’s putting her feet up in front of ‘The Wright Stuff’ of all programmes – the blooming lovely presenter must be able to afford more channels with better viewing?

I guess I have to admit Twitter is addictive, and I might even go on it again; the stalker in me definitely wants to know more.

But please celebrities, give me something to drool about and a reason to want your fabulous lifestyles.

I want to be given an insight into the world of celebrity, I want to know who is snogging who, who hates who, and who’s cheated on who, I DON’T want to log on and find out my idols are as boring as me.

Written by Emma