The most common logical fav is the bookmark fav, which saves the tweet (or the link within) for later. Our colleague Philip Bump is famous for the bookmark fav, but plenty of other “media professionals” do this, too. Honan bookmarks but notes that the whole process is futile:
Allie JonesI never, ever see [those tweets] again.
Apparently, I’m one of the most boring Twitter user types, when it comes to using favorites. Other people are much more imaginative:
Teens, we’ve found, fav almost solely on emotion. Amanda Bigi, a high school senior in Pittsburgh, told The Wire,
Allie JonesThe main reason I favorite things is to get a boy’s attention. He can see what I favorite so I do it to let him know my feelings. Also, I’ll do it to flirt with boys.She’s not alone — supposedly mature adults have admitted to being wanton flirt favers (ahem, our colleague David Sims). Brendan O’Connor documented the flirt fav phenomenon for the Daily Dot back in March.
This comes, of course, in the context of the recent discovery that Twitter started showing favorites from other users in the timeline, and the rumors it will at some point start filtering individual timelines, just like Facebook. Personally I don’t see it as such a horrible idea like so many heavy users seem to think. If the recent clarification is correct, it’s mainly intended for casual users, showing more content when there’s nothing new in their timeline from the people they follow. This way Twitter keeps them engaged with the site or app for longer. It’s a logical extension of the ‘Discovery’ section, making it more accessible for everyone. I don’t use it very often, but it’s a good source of fresh tweets whenever I visit it.
Hilarious if true. Everyone: "TWITTER, WHY?" Twitter: "Cos monkey press lever, monkey no get snack, monkey sad." https://t.co/7MnnUMBLQe
— Ed Yong (@edyong209) September 3, 2014
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