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Quitting Twitter

blog.nindalf.com

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Re: Quitting Twitter

#71

Post by PragmaticPulp »

My approach to Twitter has been to aggressively unfollow anyone posting content that I don’t want to be consuming. That ranges from constantly dunking on every opportunity to people who simply tweet too many times per day.

The best content and discussion comes from small groups of people with similar interests who aren’t using Twitter simply to fill time or to build their personal brand. Removing everyone else doesn’t take as much work as I expected, as long as you’re not hesitant to unfollow (or even block) those who distract from your desired timeline.

The mute function is also highly useful. I often add trending topics like GameStop or Bitcoin or Tesla to my mute list simply because I don’t need to hear everyone’s take or dunk on a popular topic.

Finally, taking breaks is important. If you can’t resist checking Twitter 5, 10, or 50 times per day then maybe it’s better being removed from your routine altogether. With a curated follow list, I don’t feel like I miss much by checking every other day or not looking on weekends.

Re: Quitting Twitter

#72

Post by sevilo »

Gosh, I particularly resonate with point #2 although all of them are good points. It seems people on twitter are all constantly angry about something, and it's a platform for the squeakiest wheels to find most success regardless of the quality of their content.

I never understand why so many people in the tech field are fond of it, it's nearly impossible to have any meaningful conversions or real connections.

Re: Quitting Twitter

#73

Post by jdminhbg »

andrewmutz wrote: post #24

> I still want to read what people like Patrick McKenzie, Zach Weinersmith, John Carmack and others have to say. I quit twitter years ago for some of the same reasons mentioned in this blog post, and I 100% agree with this quote. I would love a way to get at the good content from twitter without all the constant rage. Does anyone know a good tool or way to get a much more curated Twitter experience?

What works best for me is using a third-party client like Tweetbot. It has no algorithmic timeline at all. Just follow the McKenzies, Weinersmiths and Carmacks of the world, and that's all you will see.

Edit: The other big thing for me is just unfollowing/blocking people who post garbage, with no remorse. It doesn't matter if your feed is 95% gold, the 5% that isn't makes you not worth it.

Re: Quitting Twitter

#75

Post by dumb_troll »

ketzo wrote: post #8

For a post called "Quitting Twitter", I think this piece actually does a great job summarizing the really cool things about Twitter. I think there's something a little magical about finding someone you really respect in your field, responding to one of their tweets, and getting a thoughtful response six minutes later! The toxicity is rough, though. It exhausts me on big subreddits, too -- it's impossible to have conv…

One of the cooler exp in my career was Theodore Ts'o responding to a (in retrospect dumb) query about some latency issues we were witnessing with fsync. I feel like twitter enables more of those interactions

Re: Quitting Twitter

#77

Post by ALittleLight »

I like Twitter and use it a lot. I do experience the author's "problem one" though. I don't want to connect anyone I know in real life to my Twitter account so I just started tweeting with zero followers, and the results have not been great. I've gained ~30 from a year or two of infrequent tweets and those 30 never interact with me so they may all be bots.

In my experience getting followers is different than getting upvotes on reddit or hackernews. I think it's relatively rare for someone to see a single tweet which they think is so clever or informative that they must follow the tweeter, whereas it's common to upvotes (or like/favorite) such a comment.

The author's examples of accounts he follows "Patrick McKenzie, Zach Weinersmith, John Carmack" aren't famous for their tweets, but for blogging/start up advice, comics, and video games. In other words, if you're a notable famous person you can probably build a following on Twitter more or less as a product of your existing accomplishments.

Re: Quitting Twitter

#78

Post by smithmayowa »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #71

My approach to Twitter has been to aggressively unfollow anyone posting content that I don’t want to be consuming. That ranges from constantly dunking on every opportunity to people who simply tweet too many times per day. The best content and discussion comes from small groups of people with similar interests who aren’t using Twitter simply to fill time or to build their personal brand. Removing everyone else doesn’…

Paul Graham tweets agressively, but I doubt you will block him though, not everyone who tweets agressively is toxic.

Re: Quitting Twitter

#79

Post by garmaine »

liminal wrote: post #45

I check Twitter to learn what I should be outraged about. I literally say to myself "I wonder what I should be outraged about today?" and then lo and behold, Twitter tells me. I don't know where else to get that information. I wish I did, since Twitter is very inefficient with too many people retweeting the same tidbit so they can try their hand at a witty rejoinder. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the rejoinders, but th…

Why do you want to be outraged?

Re: Quitting Twitter

#80

Post by _qulr »

readflaggedcomm wrote: post #67
bachmeier wrote: post #23

I've used Twitter for more than a decade. I check it maybe once a day, and when I do, I read maybe 10% of my timeline and move on to something more productive. The biggest problem is viral misinformation combined with a focus on people that are "good with Twitter". Someone with a bunch of followers tweets something like "the sun rose in the north this morning" and if you respond "that didn't happen and it couldn't ha…

>they'll be offended and block you To them, their timeline is "curated" to remove "toxic" elements, which makes their filter bubble more pleasant. Then they blame you, even in this very thread, for finding these interactions useless. That isn't misinformation, that is a point of view. The biggest problem is that Twitter- and Mastodon-style blocking make it impossible to engage with people who need to be engaged with,…

> people who need to be engaged

Who needs to be engaged with? On Twitter, you choose who to follow. Why in the world would you have an obligation to listen to random strangers who want to argue with you? Imagine if you were in a restaurant talking with your friends, some stranger sitting at another table overheard you, and then decided to come over and butt into the conversation? And when the stranger is told to go away, they complain "You're talking in a public place where people can hear you, what did you expect?" And somehow the stranger feels that they're wronged by that.

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