What Are Twitter Timelines?

Learn the basics of Twitter timelines

Twitter timelines are a list of tweets or messages displayed in the order in which they're sent, with the most recent on top. Here's what you need to know about them.

The Different Kinds of Twitter Timelines

There are different types of Twitter timelines. The Home timeline is what every person sees by default. It's a list or stream of tweets from all the people they follow, which gets updated in real-time.

There are also timelines generated by Twitter lists. These display messages from users included in a list you follow. These messages can come from lists of users that were created by you or lists created by other people.

Search results also form Twitter timelines. These timelines show messages matching your search query in a chronological list.

Interacting With Twitter Timelines

The main thing to know about Twitter timelines is that you can interact with each message by clicking on it. It expands to show you any media associated with it, like a video or photo, who's replied or retweeted it, or other relevant conversations relating to that tweet.

Twitter timelines have changed several times as the social media platform updates its user interface. So, don't be surprised if your tweets occasionally change in appearance. Twitter continues to experiment with ways to display sponsored tweets and ads in or near timelines, so that's one area to watch.

You should familiarize yourself with Twitter language, terms, and slang. Twitter can sometimes baffle new users.

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