Two excellent, in-depth guides to Mastodon, which should answer many of your questions, are here:

1. An Increasingly Less-Brief Guide to Mastodon by joyeusenoelle: https://github.com/joyeusenoelle/GuideToMastodon

2. Nikodemus' Guide to Mastodon: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D9gfeKg_-hlsU66R-dLEvUeyMsqEfyIx2pnfUeX0t_E/edit#heading=h.j95atvlbfrn5

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With each new surge of Mastodon users, I feel the need to point out:

1. Welcome!

2. There is a learning curve here, but most people find it short and not very steep. Play around, explore. You'll get it.

3. Lots of people are willing to help.

4. Yes, it's different than Twitter. Sometimes in good ways, sometimes not. But you'll figure it out.

5. With surges especially, things sometimes get slow/glitchy, but they usually get fixed pretty quick.

Be patient.