1 year ago, I gave up Twitter
I don’t need to publish another lengthy essay about quitting social media, the internet has enough of those. In bullet points:
- I used to find Twitter entertaining, but in 2019 it was just making me sad or mad.
- After listening to Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, I owned up to the fact that regular Twitter use was costing me far more than it was benefiting me.
- Just before Jan 1, 2020. I cleared out my following list and removed the app from my phone. Occasionally I would pop on to make a tweet or interact with @CodePen related tweets. After a while, I stopped doing even that.
- Of 17K followers, almost no one noticed.
- Life was so, so much better.
What started as a month-long experiment turned in to a year. I’ll now use my Twitter account to share links to my writing or RT CodePen tweets, but I won’t be engaging with anything there. If you would like to connect, feel free to send me an email.
Comments
David Marshall
September 11, 2021 at 9:22 PM
Cal Newport has been instrumental in helping a lot of us realize how unhelpful social media can really be. I deleted my personal account back in...February? And just deleted my podcast account here recently. It'll cost us listeners, but it's for fun, and it's MORE fun not worrying about pointless metrics.
The issue, in my opinion, is once you dive deeper into thinkers like Albert Borgmann, Neil Postman, Ivan Illich, and really start rethinking your relationship with technological tools in general. hah. But that's another can of worms in itself.
Really enjoying your blog!
Rach Smith OP
September 13, 2021 at 4:27 AM
"Amusing ourselves to death" is on my to-read list. Thanks for reading and for your thoughtful comment.
David Marshall
September 13, 2021 at 2:53 PM
Absolutely! I've really enjoyed going through your blog. It's encouraging me to stick with my coding bootcamp!
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