KEVIN Davies reckons Wanderers’ young stars would be well advised to lay off Twitter after revealing his own problems with the social networking site.

Dougie Freedman announced at the weekend that he would be reviewing the use of social media in his squad after recent problems encountered by striker Marvin Sordell.

The England Under-21 international has contacted police after suffering alleged racist abuse last week. And with the manager potentially looking to curb the use of Twitter by his players, the captain admits the site had become a distracting influence by the time he chose to quit regularly using it last May, a few weeks after Wanderers’ harrowing FA Cup semi-final defeat to Stoke City at Wembley.

“If it was me, I’d advise not to go on it,” he said. “I enjoyed my time on it because it gave me the opportunity to have conversations with fans and contacts for the charity (Kids of Bolton), which was fantastic. But when it gets to the point that you are getting abuse, it can play on your mind and affect you.

“If you are not sleeping at night wondering what you are waking up to, I don’t think you are getting anything out of being on there.

“It got to the point after the semi-final where I was hurting and so was everyone else. You are constantly checking to see whether you are getting stick.

“I didn’t need that. I needed to concentrate on football.”

Sordell is one of a handful of players who regularly use Twitter, including Benik Afobe, Joe Riley, Rob Lainton, Sam Ricketts, Gregg Wylde and Marcos Alonso. Stuart Holden currently has more than 286,000 followers after starting up his own account before his arrival at the Reebok, primarily to help his charity.

Ex-player Fabrice Muamba and several staff members, including the chairman Phil Gartside, are also registered to the site.

Davies maintains an account to help publicise his charity work, but, though his wife Emma remains a regular presence, he has decided against entering into a regular dialogue with the public and would advise younger team-mates to do the same.

“Sometimes after games when you can’t sleep and you are having conversations with a fan – that side I absolutely loved,” he said.

“I had the opportunity to speak with young fans, send things and give advice, which was the reason I was on there.

“It’s only one per cent of people who have a problem. But the one per cent of 180,000 people who followed me is still a lot of people.

“Then you get family and other things brought into it. I don’t think you need that in your life.

“What you are gaining out of it as a 20-21-year-old I don’t know really. That’s the reason I came off it and it felt like a big weight off my shoulders. You are constantly wondering what you are tweeting and having to justify yourself.”

Davies made his 600th league appearance as a substitute in the 2-2 draw at Blackpool and is hoping to return to the starting line-up for the visit of Barnsley this weekend.

After taking on some of the more fancied Championship sides in the last few weeks, Keith Hill’s men have found themselves struggling near the foot of the table.

But the experienced striker has preached caution as the Tykes come to town for the first time since the turn of the millennium.

“It’s becoming quite an unpredictable league, you can’t take anything for granted,” he said. “There are still a lot of points to play for with 30 games to go and we haven’t really hit a run yet. A lot of the teams up at the top have, so if we can, we can get right in amongst it.

“We’re five points off the play-offs now so we need to get into a position soon and kick on.”