Twitter has been an unfriendly environment for a while now. As the site opened up to more people, quote tweets and replies became battlegrounds of opinion. At first, I naively thought the prickly parts of Twitter were something I had to accept. I didn’t want to “live in a bubble.”
Bad takes on Twitter were magnets for quote tweets and replies. It’s very hard for people to resist. Quote tweets and replies didn’t shame people for what horrible things they said. In reality, it just gave them attention.
Before Twitter, these things would never have been able to reach us.
Twitter added three features that destroyed the site: search, replies, and quote tweets. Search gave people the ability to find and listen in on any conversation. Replies gave them the ability to enter any conversation. Quote tweets gave them the ability to share that entry point with people like them.
My ears have limited range. I can’t hear into infinity. Twitter gave everyone in the world the capability to shout into my ear. There’s nothing sustainable or healthy about that.
Since the new guy took over, I felt like I snapped out of a trance. It’s been over a week since I decided to break away from using Twitter, and I’ve found I have freed up significant time in my day. I’m no longer giving time to things that don’t deserve it.
I don’t have any infinitely-scrolling apps or games on my iPhone, so it has become a very practical tool for me: a phone, an iPod, an internet communicator, and a camera. Everything else is noise.