Meformers

Twitter users whose tweets pertain predominantly to themselves.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Marisa Taylor asked “Are you an informer or a ‘meformer’?”

According to a new study from Rutgers University, four out of five Twitter users are the latter, posting updates mainly about themselves. The remaining 20% are “informers,” tweeting information, such as links to news articles.

Communication professors Mor Namaan and Jeffrey Boase, and doctoral student Chih-Hui Lai, came up with the terms while studying what they call social-awareness streams. …

They coined the term “meformers” to describe users whose tweets could frequently be categorized as “me now” – what they were doing or how they were feeling. These updates do serve a purpose, they said. “Although the Meformers’ self focus might be characterized by some as self-indulgent, these messages may play an important role in helping users maintain relationships with strong and weak ties.”