Is it time to leave Twitter (again)?
The Twitter fall out continues. It seems Musk is doing all he can to fragment and destroy the communities built over many years. Rules and features come and go almost on a whim. Each twist and turn pushes more people away and tests the patience of those who remain.
I enjoy(ed) Twitter. There is a wide range of photographers and artists whose work I admire. There are hashtags full of inspirational images made from the most mundane of objects. People who I interact with regularly, and whose presence I appreciate. And it remains the most popular social media platform in Japan.
Yet even after calming my experience with mutes and blocks and lists, the chaos breaks through. Some of those I interact with have fallen silent, making my timeline a little quieter. Trends are pushed that are almost exclusively negative in their content. Conspiracy theories and misinformation appears as fact and racism has flourished. I’ve deleted seemingly innocuous posts because the replies threatened to drag me down a QAnon rabbit hole.
All of this prompted me to question how and where I put my time into social media. There’s no doubt I spend too much of it on Twitter, and in the wrong ways. Too much doom-scrolling hate filled hashtags, reading the same argument put 100 different ways. Not enough interacting with those who “spark joy”. Or being somewhere else.
As the end of the year rushes towards me it’s time to take stock. To rethink how I want 2023 to be when it comes to social media. While Twitter will no doubt be a place where I share some content, I suspect more of my time will be elsewhere.
Two-and-a-half years ago I moved halfway across the world and left a lot of what I’d grown used to behind. Maybe it’s time to take the same attitude to Twitter. Fun while it lasted, and I’ll stay in touch with a few people, but now I’m looking forwards to whatever comes next.
My name is Ross Hori
I'm a freelance writer, designer and photographer. By day I create articles, features and reports. At night I take photos and write fiction. Find out more.
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