Many of us, myself included, struggle with explaining to someone who has never seen Twitter, what exactly it is. I won’t even try here. And as TIME magazine aptly states, “Twitter makes a terrible first impression.” The poor impression comes from the fact that it is difficult to understand.

All at the same time, it is a new type of one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many communication. Say what? It’s different from email, instant messaging, and message boards, but has similarities. Yet, it is so simple. See what I mean?

This social media darling has become amazingly popular for it’s ability to harness people’s inherent instinct to connect with others. It offers news way to share, communicate, stay informed, discover, and more. Many people are in love with these new ways to relate, and for some it has become a sort of addiction. They dedicate a lot of time out of their day to spend on Twitter. And this leads to the other element of the bad first impression for non-users. It appears that if you Tweet, you are required to do it a LOT. There is a perceived obligation to very actively participate. “Sounds like a commitment, I got enough of those.” But the fact of the matter is that there are no rules about Twitter participation. It’s quite easy to ‘make it work’ for you in whichever way feels appropriate.

When added up, a fear of the unknown and fear of commitment, result in many people just staying away.

I can’t explain it. I think you will like it. It won’t take much time. Try it, I did.