Twitter. Again

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I joined Twitter on January 27th, 2009, not that long after I wrote my first blog post here. Nearly 14 years ago.

Since then I’ve written quite a bit about Twitter, how I use it for note-taking at events, how you can use it for informal learning, several posts on my use and love/hate for it and how I’ve changed over the years (here and here and here and here).

But my interest and love affair for Twitter and social media, in general, has waned a lot over the last year to the point where I’ve culled a vast majority of my Facebook ‘friends’, shut down a couple of minor and inconsequential channels, and vastly dropped my use of the big two – LinkedIn and Twitter.

Last week, Elon Musk completed his Twitter purchase and, if he follows through with his promises about free speech and the previously banned accounts, will reduce the platform again to abuse, and trolling, and make it somewhere I have no interest in being.

The last few years have been tough, not just for me, but for the world – Brexit, Covid, fires, US Presidents, UK Prime Ministers (several times over, as it happens!!!), etc, etc. Social media has been at the fore of this for news coverage and the despair that so many feel, me included. As well as the utter frustration and absolute terror of it all happening in front of us, and all we can do is watch while it happens around us.

My last deliberate, active tweet was last week – October 28th, 2022, at 10:55AM:

Whilst I won’t delete my account, yet, I am not going to be anywhere as active there. Nor will I log in and spend evenings doomscrolling as I have done the last year or so trying to find something worth reading in the mess of the noise. I am regaining control of myself, my time, and my health.

To those who stay and ride the rough Twitter seas out, I admire you and wish you all the best. It’s just not for me at the moment. My inactivity on Twitter will not change anything – I’m sure it’ll go unnoticed by 99.99999% of Twitter users and Twitter statisticians, Elon won’t notice, nor do I really care. But it will make my life a whole lot simpler and calmer for not being part of the toxic merrygoround anymore.

If you want some stuff to read about the present & future of Twitter, try these posts … here and here and here and here and here and more here.

Photo by Ravi Sharma on Unsplash