Twitter, Twitter, Twitter

I've written at length on this blog about my relationship to digital technology in general and to Twitter in particular. I deleted my Facebook account. I'm not on Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Tumblr, or anything else. I'm part of one Slack channel, which isn't work-related and is quite life-giving, but I regulate my time on there nonetheless. I use Freedom to block access to the internet for large stretches of the day. The only remaining social media platform in my life—beyond the evils of YouTube and Google, from which I hope to find a way to extricate myself sooner rather than later—is Twitter.

I gave Twitter up for two months last fall, and it was great. But I was persuaded to return, at least in modest ways, given the relationships and connections I'd developed using it. Then Covid hit, and I ditched the rules and was on it far too much from spring break to Memorial Day. But these last two months I have come round to the same conclusion that instigated my initial dropout: it can't be saved. It can't be redeemed. It's purest poison. It cannot be defanged; it only lies in wait. But dormancy is not safety. Twitter is a cancer and the only path forward is digital chemotherapy.

So I stopped liking, retweeting, or tweeting (with a couple small exceptions). I got off for all but 10-15 minutes per day. That's my happy new normal. Here are the steps I plan to take in the coming weeks.

First, to delete all my previous likes and retweets, and most or all of my tweets.

Second, to use it only as a kind of RSS feed for a handful of writers I follow. So that means no scrolling on the Home page, only going to specific profiles and reading their tweets or following their links. But still, no more than a dozen minutes a day, tops.

Third, in terms of my own profile and usage, I will cease liking or replying to others. I will use Twitter henceforth exclusively as a "public facing" repository of links to things I've written, or plainly worded professional information. I'm going to leave my account up—for now—as a one-stop-shop that makes it easy to find me, my work, my blog, my contact info. In other words, I want my Twitter presence to be uniformly boring. I want to be a bad follow.

Fourth, however, I am going to think hard about deleting my account once and for all. I may deactivate for the month of August or September to see how it feels. I've yet to make a final decision about that. If it is true, as I say, that Twitter is a poison and a cancer, then even a boring links-heavy profile like mine keeps the poison in circulation. I don't want to contribute to that. I want to keep contracting my digital footprint until it is comprises nothing but (a) what I've written in formal venues and (b) online space I own.

So we'll see how it goes. Part of this footprint-contraction plan entails more blogging: instead of emailing, texting, or Slack-commenting my ideas and observations, I want to write them out here. That's the goal, at least. I'll check in with reports and reflections as the plan is executed or, as the case may be, aborted or audibled.

In any case, lest this short post was too long and you didn't read: Get off Twitter. It's from the evil one.