A Twitter trial
I'm reconsidering my presence on Twitter. I wrote earlier this year about why, for the time being, I was still on the platform. But as I said (via tweet) yesterday, I'm not long for that website. Let me lay out, briefly, why that is, and the experiment I'm going to undertake in the coming weeks.
1. Even with the comparatively limited time I spend on Twitter, I find during working and non-online hours that it burrows too deeply into my skull. I have a thought or read a great line and think, "I should tweet that out." Or I do tweet something out, and 40 minutes later I think, "I should put down this book and see if anyone's responded." That's crazy and unhealthy. Best to be off entirely.
2. Even having removed Twitter from my phone, even blocking access to it on my laptop for long stretches using Freedom, I still open up my computer too often wanting to "check in," and more often than not I end up getting sucked in for 10 minutes instead of 5, 20 minutes instead of 10, and so on. No más, por favor.
3. I'm persuaded that Twitter is bad for writers. Though it is good for connecting writers to one another and to editors and publications—I've certainly benefited from that—it is a terrible wastrel of a parasite on the writing mind and the writing process. It sucks blood from the writer's intelligence, wit, and courage. It also encourages a kind of anticipatory conformity and fear. I'm tired of seeing that in other writers, and I'm tired of resisting it in myself.
4. The effect on writers is a function of the larger Twitter Brain problem, according to which the Extremely Online mistake Twitter for real life, both in terms of the prevalence of certain views and in terms of their importance. But Twitter is not representative, nor is what the Twitterati considers important actually so. More often than not, it's a tempest in a teapot. And that, too, warps the mind as well as one's affections. No more.
5. Tech critics like Postman have convinced me of the power of form over content. The form is not neutral; Twitter is not a delivery system for otherwise untouched or unshaped material. And in this case, the medium intrinsically and necessarily distorts the message beyond repair. The infinite scroll of the timeline flattens out, de-contextualizes, and thereby trivializes everything that passes through it. All becomes meme. What is important becomes a football for play, and what is unimportant generates rage, mockery, hatred, and division. Twitter is a hothouse for the formation of vice; it detests, slanders, and butchers virtue wherever it is found. Nothing good can come from a means of communication that sets cat memes next to articles investigating child abuse next to sports GIFs next to the brother of a murder victim forgiving his murderer next to a spit-flecked thread arguing over the existence of eternal conscious torment next to a recipe for gluten-free lasagna next to a GoFundMe for a child with severe brain trauma next to a tweet about impeachment by the President. I repeat: Nothing good.
6. Not to mention that people are getting harassed or losing their jobs over their activity on public (and "private") social media. Why take the risk?
7. Add do that how companies like Twitter (and Facebook, my account on which I have deleted; and Google, my account on which I have not—that will be next in these tech-wise reflections) are profiting off our data in ways legal and only semi-legal but certainly immoral, harmful, and deceptive. That is what makes them "free": we are selling ourselves to be online, engaging in activities that are bad for ourselves and bad for others. There's a word for that, y'all.
8. Perhaps there is no healthy future for life online, but I am certain that there is no healthy future for life online that includes Twitter and Facebook. And if I think that, why prop it up? My exit won't make a difference, true. But if these companies are a brothel and we're paying the lease with our time, I'll spend my time somewhere else, thank you very much.
So here's what I'm going to try, in lieu of immediately (rashly?) deleting my account for good:
1. I will remain signed out of Twitter all week except for Saturday.
2. I will sign in to Twitter and "be" on there for a maximum of 30 minutes on Saturday.
3. When signed in, I will not retweet, like, or reply to other tweets.
4. When signed in, I will not tweet "thoughts" or the like. I will, instead, do one of two things. I will tweet out links either to things I have written or to things I have read and are worth sharing with others.
And the following are matters I'm still deliberating about:
5. Whether or not to delete all past tweets, so as to re-shape my Twitter profile into a kind of static "online hub" for folks to find me, discover who I am, see what I've written, and to follow links there either to my blog, to my Academia.edu page, or to my contact info so as to get in touch directly.
6. Whether or not to communicate via DMs or to make my email address clear enough for folks who'd like to contact me that way.
7. Whether or not, during the week, while signed out, to treat a handful of Twitter profiles as if they are RSS feeds meant to share links of pieces worth reading. I can imagine this being a healthy way of using Twitter against its wishes. But we'll see, since the whole point is to be off Twitter entirely during the week. And I wouldn't want to compulsively check Profile X throughout the day. For now I think I'll limit it to Saturdays, with the exception of one or two profiles (maybe, maybe, maybe).
As you can tell, I'm still in the middle of this. My mind's not quite made up yet. I may end up deleting my account entirely by year's end. Or I may discover some other mode of minimal-to-no usage. We shall see. I'll report back here later, as I always do.
1. Even with the comparatively limited time I spend on Twitter, I find during working and non-online hours that it burrows too deeply into my skull. I have a thought or read a great line and think, "I should tweet that out." Or I do tweet something out, and 40 minutes later I think, "I should put down this book and see if anyone's responded." That's crazy and unhealthy. Best to be off entirely.
2. Even having removed Twitter from my phone, even blocking access to it on my laptop for long stretches using Freedom, I still open up my computer too often wanting to "check in," and more often than not I end up getting sucked in for 10 minutes instead of 5, 20 minutes instead of 10, and so on. No más, por favor.
3. I'm persuaded that Twitter is bad for writers. Though it is good for connecting writers to one another and to editors and publications—I've certainly benefited from that—it is a terrible wastrel of a parasite on the writing mind and the writing process. It sucks blood from the writer's intelligence, wit, and courage. It also encourages a kind of anticipatory conformity and fear. I'm tired of seeing that in other writers, and I'm tired of resisting it in myself.
4. The effect on writers is a function of the larger Twitter Brain problem, according to which the Extremely Online mistake Twitter for real life, both in terms of the prevalence of certain views and in terms of their importance. But Twitter is not representative, nor is what the Twitterati considers important actually so. More often than not, it's a tempest in a teapot. And that, too, warps the mind as well as one's affections. No more.
5. Tech critics like Postman have convinced me of the power of form over content. The form is not neutral; Twitter is not a delivery system for otherwise untouched or unshaped material. And in this case, the medium intrinsically and necessarily distorts the message beyond repair. The infinite scroll of the timeline flattens out, de-contextualizes, and thereby trivializes everything that passes through it. All becomes meme. What is important becomes a football for play, and what is unimportant generates rage, mockery, hatred, and division. Twitter is a hothouse for the formation of vice; it detests, slanders, and butchers virtue wherever it is found. Nothing good can come from a means of communication that sets cat memes next to articles investigating child abuse next to sports GIFs next to the brother of a murder victim forgiving his murderer next to a spit-flecked thread arguing over the existence of eternal conscious torment next to a recipe for gluten-free lasagna next to a GoFundMe for a child with severe brain trauma next to a tweet about impeachment by the President. I repeat: Nothing good.
6. Not to mention that people are getting harassed or losing their jobs over their activity on public (and "private") social media. Why take the risk?
7. Add do that how companies like Twitter (and Facebook, my account on which I have deleted; and Google, my account on which I have not—that will be next in these tech-wise reflections) are profiting off our data in ways legal and only semi-legal but certainly immoral, harmful, and deceptive. That is what makes them "free": we are selling ourselves to be online, engaging in activities that are bad for ourselves and bad for others. There's a word for that, y'all.
8. Perhaps there is no healthy future for life online, but I am certain that there is no healthy future for life online that includes Twitter and Facebook. And if I think that, why prop it up? My exit won't make a difference, true. But if these companies are a brothel and we're paying the lease with our time, I'll spend my time somewhere else, thank you very much.
So here's what I'm going to try, in lieu of immediately (rashly?) deleting my account for good:
1. I will remain signed out of Twitter all week except for Saturday.
2. I will sign in to Twitter and "be" on there for a maximum of 30 minutes on Saturday.
3. When signed in, I will not retweet, like, or reply to other tweets.
4. When signed in, I will not tweet "thoughts" or the like. I will, instead, do one of two things. I will tweet out links either to things I have written or to things I have read and are worth sharing with others.
And the following are matters I'm still deliberating about:
5. Whether or not to delete all past tweets, so as to re-shape my Twitter profile into a kind of static "online hub" for folks to find me, discover who I am, see what I've written, and to follow links there either to my blog, to my Academia.edu page, or to my contact info so as to get in touch directly.
6. Whether or not to communicate via DMs or to make my email address clear enough for folks who'd like to contact me that way.
7. Whether or not, during the week, while signed out, to treat a handful of Twitter profiles as if they are RSS feeds meant to share links of pieces worth reading. I can imagine this being a healthy way of using Twitter against its wishes. But we'll see, since the whole point is to be off Twitter entirely during the week. And I wouldn't want to compulsively check Profile X throughout the day. For now I think I'll limit it to Saturdays, with the exception of one or two profiles (maybe, maybe, maybe).
As you can tell, I'm still in the middle of this. My mind's not quite made up yet. I may end up deleting my account entirely by year's end. Or I may discover some other mode of minimal-to-no usage. We shall see. I'll report back here later, as I always do.
