When I first saw the tweet about the new Twitter-App update with a new style of conversations, I was curious: How would it work.

So, I pretty soon updated my app - and shortly after regretted doing so. Because - these Blue Lines in the timeline really ruins my twitter experience.

At first I was hopeful that the update would be rolled back quickly, or a new update launched without them. But nothing had happened (at least not on Android - I have heard about iOS-users updating later, and not having the lines, but getting other updates instead.)

It is not like I am alone in disliking this update - I think I have seen two tweets being positive, out of hundreds of negative ones. And it's really not just a matter of "getting used to them" - I really hope I'll never become used to them.

The Blue Lines ruin the most important part of twitter - the timeline - for me. This is why:

• They are ugly
  
  Granted, if I liked the way they worked I might not feel this way. But I don't - and I really don't think they are pleasing to look at.
   
• They are confusing
  
  When I skim my timeline I find it hard to see where one conversation stops and another starts. Especially because I find myself more and more skimming faster over tweets with blue lines, because I don't want a repeat of the conversation I'll probably get.
   
• They are annoying
  
  I just mentioned it, above. The repeats. I see the same tweet, again and again - because it has engaged a lot of people. That would normally be a good thing for a tweet to do that. But I find myself beginning to hate these engaging tweets, because they keep turning up in my feed, and I have read them.
   
• They ruin the flow
  
  Before the blue lines there was a logical flow to my timeline, the chronology made sense. Not so now, now I have to remember that tweets above other tweets, were actually made before, not after, the one before, if there is a blue line. That takes a lot of mental energy - so much that I feel skimming my timeline is becoming stressful.

The last part is really the worst. I especially noticed it when I was using twitter in the middle of the night last night. Now for me, because of time zones, in the night it is mostly American or Australian tweeps I have in my timeline - and they don't have many conversations, as they are some I have randomly picked up, and probably not many follow each other.

The result being, in the night my timeline is almost entirely without blue lines - and it felt so good. So relaxing - after under a week of the blue lines filling my timeline during the day.

Please, Twitter - I love the fact that you try to make a better interface, and I don't mind you experimenting. But this was a dead end. It's bad. So, can we please get rid of it?

I can see why you wanted to make it clearer when a tweet is part of a conversation, but really a small blue dot, or other visual hint should be more than enough.

Or, if you really insist on keeping these horrible lines, then at least give us an option not to have them.

Otherwise I can only recommend people use another app for twitter. (I myself are more or less forced to use them, as I write a guide for them. *sigh*)

(BTW, if you see the lines on the web, and they are not ble - and wonder how come I talk about blues lines: it's because on the web the color used is the same as you have chosen for links. Whereas in the apps the color is always twitter-blue.)

QED (a real-time search for the term "blue lines"):
Tweets about ""blue lines""