I took a Twitter break, years ago. See here.
But its time for another one, and for completely different reasons. Last time it was about feeding the algorithm, the lack of engagement, the politics, and that it simply took me away from my raison d’être. My writing.
This time, the reasons are a little bit more insidious.
Everyone I speak to will say something like “where does all the time go?” Or “How on earth is it July already?”
Time doesn’t feel right, and it doesn’t just feel not right for me. It feels not right for everyone, or mostly everyone, or just everyone that has talked about it. Either way, its not just me.
For a long time I simply assumed it was an age thing. Or maybe I was drinking too much.
No. I did some research, and its social media. We spend hours on our devices, but when our brains make sense of this during our sleep, our dreams, the whole time that we are awake and interacting with our phones is classified by the brain as “nothing happened”.
And its not just time at home. A three hour commute spent on the phone didn’t happen. A holiday away, with the phone, didn’t happen. It really is insidious.
And then, we notice how everything is designed to keep your face attached to the screen. Continuous scrolling to keep us hooked, the likes and replies on our posts are witheld until they can be used to entice us back when our attention begins to flag. We are bribed back with a flurry of attention.
The politics have changed. There are no pile ons if you say the wrong thing anymore, but its easy to get embroiled in pointless arguments.
The thing at the moment is the Supergirl movie. I won’t be watching it, so why the hell am I being drawn in to arguments about it.
And climate change. The Sun comes out and everyone wants to argue about how terrible it is, while simultaneously booking the flight to the Mediterranean in search of that very sun.
And the whole blue button/red button thing. If you don’t know. Don’t go there.
There is no profit in social media for me. It doesn’t drive any sales, it doesn’t deliver any engagement revenue. It just eats my time.
So the question is. How do I feel about deleting my account?
I feel nothing. There’s a little bit of FOMO but there are no great debates to be preserved.
Sod it. It can go. And I can reclaim my time, and spend it on better things, and hopefully have something worth remembering at the end of the day. Maybe.
Update.
It is done. And it is liberating.
The account is deactivated and the app is uninstalled.
After posting this blog post, I returned to my account to find a good natured reply to a post about the lost opportunities to explore the buses of Sheffield in Dr Who, and an insulting response to my views of Supergirl.
I then, ofcourse, replied about the buses, and gave a brutal put down to the miscreant. Neither are productive use of my time, but both are enticing to see what happens next.
So its gone. Doesn’t matter. Don’t care.
Leave a Reply