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355 lines
18 KiB
355 lines
18 KiB
Title: Why I deleted my Twitter, and why maybe you should too
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Category: Blog
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Date: 2022-10-18
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Tags: culture, tech
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I deleted my Twitter account this month. It was a decision that I had
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struggled with for months (if not years), and one that I want to talk
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about. This article is a collection of thoughts gathered through
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conversations with friends on this topic. I was advised to turn these
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thoughts into a blog post.
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If you are struggling with your relationship to social media and
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having a hard time cutting ties with some platform (in particular
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Twitter), maybe this blog post will be helpful to you.
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## Background
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I got addicted to Twitter in the run-up to the 2016 US election. I
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was going through a bit of a moderate phase back then (sandwiched
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between the punk days of my teens and the anarchy of today) and I
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became part of "liberal twitter", consumed liberal memes, and enjoyed
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dunking on conservatives. Of course I didn't think Trump would win.
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After the election results this behaviour intensified. I sought
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refuge from the world that had shattered my understanding of society
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by sliding deeper into the filter bubble that had sheltered me from
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reality in the first place. And so I revelled in making fun of Trump
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and his supporters, celebrating the "cofefes" and body shaming, and
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intensively following the discourse (TM). Of course it didn't make me
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any less miserable.
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The band-aid for the pain that I felt, the realisation that the world
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didn't work the way I had swindled myself into believing, soon didn't
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satisfy my need for comfort and so I became more dependent on instant
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gratification through social media. *I was unable to truly comprehend
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the extent to which I was addicted to the thing that was hurting me.*
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_Doom scrolling_ is a well known phenomenon in our terminally online
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society and we talk about it as if it was unavoidable. As if it was
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an individualist problem. We _know_ that it is bad for our mental
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health, yet rarely do we talk about it on a systemic level. Why do we
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all put up with these circumstances and why do we all keep making
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excuses for the systems that make us miserable? This, to me, is the
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core of how many people engage with modern social media platforms.
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I had taken longer breaks from Twitter before, deleting the app off my
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phone, bargaining with myself about how much I wanted to share. But I
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always fell back into its orbit. I feel it's appropriate to use the
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language of addiction around this subject. And it wasn't until I
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truly admitted to myself that I had a problem that I was able to let
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go and examine the frameworks through which I had engaged with online
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society, and the impact that these systems had had on me and my life.
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In the following sections of this article I want to outline some of
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the mechanisms that have kept me hooked for so long and have made it
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_extremely difficult_ to escape its consequences. Lastly I also want
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to talk about a possible way out and some alternatives as to how to
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engage with _the online_.
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## The fear of missing out
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Social media weaponises "FOMO", the _fear of missing out_. Twitter is
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particularly good at this, advertising itself as the platform "to know
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what's happening". _Twitter users know it first_ is the actual
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current tag-line to entice you into signing up.
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I believe social media has had the strangle-hold over our collective
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psyche at least in part because "we" have designed a society where
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being outside your own home is miserable, exhausting, and toxic. To
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have a good time outside you need to spend money, or you need to
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engage in some kind of social event. Merely the act of *being
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outside* is punished through car-centric design and architecture. Not
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to mention the noise that personal motor vehicles cause and their
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effect on the mental well being of city dwellers. I have been
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fortunate in a way, living in the suburbs of Berlin (for the time
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being), meaning that I only have to walk for about 5 minutes before I
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end up in the Brandenburg forest.
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This has actually been a life-saver. It has meant that I was able to
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escape stressful situations over the last few years (of which there
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have been _too many_) by going for a walk, disconnecting through
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nature, and re-grounding myself in a very basic way. It seems silly
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to even talk about this but having the ability to _go for nice a walk_
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has been linked to a significant improvement of mental health
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[^nature].
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The unfortunate reality is, that many people do not have access to
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this basic human need, and so, social media can often seem like an
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enticing alternative. This is an especially important angle
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considering the way addictive design is used in social media apps to
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give you a false sense of gratification.
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Over the last decade we have all become more _and more_ aware of
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global events to the detriment of our collective mental health.
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Permanently wired into "what's happening" creates the illusion of
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control, where none is possible. _I'm not arguing for ignorance here
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either_. I don't think that shutting yourself off to what is
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happening in the world is a reasonable alternative. But we _must
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examine_ the ways that our current modus operandi is damaging to us.
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We must especially become aware of how the _fear of missing out_ will
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drive us to engage for longer and beyond our personal limits to handle
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the stress that knowing the horrors of the global capitalist system
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causes within us.
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## Becoming a brand
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When I created my Twitter account back in 2012 it was for me to
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shit-post about video games, and to keep in touch with various friends
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around my life. Around 2017 a slow shift started to appear in the way
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that I used my account. It was gradual, and imperceptibly to me at
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first. Over time I was changing from _being a person_ to _being a
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brand_. This will probably not be everyone's experience. I know
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people who are 100% the same in person as they are on Twitter (even
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with large-ish follower counts) and I assume this is not a problem
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that everyone is going to have.
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Still, it is something that I have struggled with, and that I _know_
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people much "larger" than me are also straggling with. My audience
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on Twitter was still relatively small, yet I stopped feeling confident
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in being able to share myself as-is on the site. In one part this was
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because it made me uncomfortable to share intimate and private parts
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of my life with thousands of people online that I didn't know. In
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other parts it was because my political and societal outlook shifted
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and radicalised. My views became less socially acceptable, and so, I
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started filtering myself online. This was small at first, but over
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time it built up a wall between me and my Twitter brand.
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On one hand I felt this weird obligation to use my platform, *to
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leverage* the following that I had for the work that I was doing and
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that was important to me. On the other hand I felt repulsed by the
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idea of having to pretend to be someone I wasn't to be accepted.
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I want to quickly explore the shape and form of online communities
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(through my experience obviously -- I have done some research into
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this but sociologically things are more complex than this) because I
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think it will be helpful to explain how this shift from "person" to
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"brand" happened.
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Broadly speaking, internet communities fall onto a spectrum between
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*specialist* and *generalistic*.
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Specialist communities are those built around a specific common
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interest. This could be part of your identity, it might be a hobby,
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or it might be a shared profession. It's important to know that this
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is only a _part_ of you and while it's easy to find people who are
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also into _this thing_, often any other overlap is coincidental or not
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guaranteed to result in connections that you will want to maintain.
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In my experience these communities end up feeling shallow because the
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social overlap is limited to a particular subject. It is certainly
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possible to build otherwise nuanced relationships with people in these
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spaces, but it's not as easy.
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(Again, this model has its limitations, especially for communities by
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marginalised folks, where a shared life experience provides a common
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backdrop to society that influences every other aspect of someone's
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life.)
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Generalist communities are those that are polymorphic, meaning that a
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(more or less) diverse crowd of people come together (maybe under a
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_very_ loosely defined banner) to talk to each other. While it will be
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possible to meet people who share a wide variety of interests to you,
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it can also feel like searching for a needle in a hay stack because
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there are a lot of people, and finding potential friends in a huge
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diverse crowd of people who you may not have many things in common
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with can be difficult.
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Most social media sites will reflect any number of community
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variations on this spectrum and Twitter is no exception in that.
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There are subtle differences in how these categories work depending on
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how you engage with the platform. In my time on Twitter as an
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individual I felt like I was building multiple sets of specialist
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communities. Once I _became a brand_ however this shifted and the
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focus relied more on building a generalist audience. No longer could
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I assume that my followers were sympathetic to me, and so came the
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consequences of presenting my authentic self in front of an
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ever-increasing crowd of judges.
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## The algorithm & the timeline
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A few years ago social media platforms started pushing for
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algorithmically curated timelines. At first this caused an uproar,
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when users stopped seeing their friends' posts in their feed and
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instead started seeing random sponsored content; whether someone had
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paid for it or merely _engaged with it_. At this point you will also
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see content recommendations from groups and hashtags.
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But this controversy died down over time, as could maybe have been
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expected. Ironically running a poll on Twitter these days whether
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people use the algorithmic or chronological timelines yields in a
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heavy filter bias, which "shows" that most people are using the
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chronological timeline. Of course, most of your followers won't
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actually see your post in the end.
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Algorithmic timeline design is at the centre of modern corporate
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social media sites. The goal is no longer to facilitate meaningful
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exchange between users and instead the focus has shifted to keeping
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users "engaged" for longer. The customers are ad-buyers and the
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commodity is your time. This is another open secret that we all
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conveniently ignore. _You may think that you are above this_, that
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you can't be manipulated into spending more and more of your precious
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time on this planet in front of your phone or laptop, refreshing,
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scrolling, refreshing, scrolling, but considering that the designs of
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these tools fall prey to their own creations [^sd], you are not.
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Importantly algorithms are also arbiters of content, and in the ideal
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case, equalisers. Someone with very few followers can have a post
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"blow up" if the algorithm blesses it, and someone with many followers
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can have their work buried if the algorithm deems it unsuitable.
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This might not be a problem for your shit posts. But when you try to
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use a platform to advertise your work, especially when you are
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financially dependent on it, this can be a scary prospect.
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Twitter is by far not the worst platform for this, nor is it the one
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with the worst effect. Sites like YouTube, where artists spend
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hundreds of hours creating videos, are much more affected by this.
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But the mechanisms are fundamentally the same.
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## Social capital vs. Perceived social capital
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Algorithmic timelines on Twitter feed into the dilemma between our
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_perceived_ social capital and our _actual_ social capital. Social
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media has largely become mandatory for branding, for advertising your
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work in some way. Especially if you are self employed or an artist of
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any kind, your livelihood may depend on your ability to promote your
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work and getting whatever you are doing in front of the eye balls of
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other people. Having a large following on Twitter will definitely
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help with this, but it's by no means a guarantee. Other platforms
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suffer from this too (again: see problems that smaller YouTube
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creators face[^salari] that those who have "made it" no longer do).
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I think this is the aspect that I struggled with the longest. I
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didn't judge my Twitter account by the actual social capital that I
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gained from it, I judged it by the _perceived social capital_ that I
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thought to gain from sticking around. The reality of the situation
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was that any time I would genuinely talk about my work, advertise
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something that I had made or was proud of, my Twitter audience was
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useless. Almost as an insult the most popular of my posts were shit
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posts. Having recently talked about this with some friends, both with
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smaller and significantly larger audiences, this seems to be an almost
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universal experience.
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It's extremely difficult to distinguish these two values and to really
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understand what actual benefit you are gaining from sticking around on
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a platform. A lot of it is going to be projection. And fantasies
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will make it hard to quit. Don't think about the one time your work
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was valued, think about the hundred times that your work felt ignored.
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## Elon Musk is going to buy Twitter
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~You may not like it, but it is going to happen~[^musk] (in fact I
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took so long to edit this post that it already has[^musk2]. Elon Musk
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is a sad, unremarkable little man who keeps failing his way to the top
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because our society is set up to reward the son of an apartheid
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business man while punishing anyone with actual talent, who didn't
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have the common sense to be born rich.
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I don't think Musk is particularly evil, he's not intelligent or
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cunning enough for that. And he's not _especially_ bad in how he runs
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his companies or how he exploits his employees (he's your _exceedingly
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average_ union busting bastard). He's just another Billionaire.
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Twitter has a lot of Elon Musks that all use it for their personal
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gain. Twitter benefits from drama and have maintained it for years.
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At this point I don't think anything is going to stop certain people
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from leaving Twitter. No design changes to the platform did it,
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Donald Trump didn't do it, and this acquisition by a wanna-be
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intellectual entrepreneur (sounds like an oxymoron) won't do it either.
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Personally I've had enough and don't want to make excuses anymore.
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## In conclusion
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I was in London at the beginning of October, watching the closing
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performance of [The Prince] at the Southwark Playhouse. After the
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play I walked around Elephant & Castle with a friend and we talked
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about social media and the performances we all play for each other (in
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line with the play, which you should definitely watch on or offline if
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you have the chance). It was in that moment that I went "fuck it".
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We only get so many years on this planet and the world is a truly
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horrific and heart breaking place. And we are going to need all of
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our collective strength to change things. If we even still can. One
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thing I am certain of however: _social media is not going to help us_.
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Corporate social media has been designed to keep us engaged to the
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detriment of our mental health. Being informed of something happening
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does not increase your agency over the situation. In most cases it is
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going to remove your agency.
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Delete your Twitter account. You can do it. I believe in you :)
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## Aftermath
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One _last_ thing I want to talk about is alternatives. I am still
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online, I still talk to friends. I even, in a sense, still have a
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public persona. I use [the fediverse] to advertise my work, and have
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done so for years. In fact, every time I posted something on Twitter,
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I also posted in on fedi. The differences in feedback were
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astounding. It wasn't that _every_ post got a lot of attention, but
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the ones I truly cared about did. Not only were they widely shared,
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they created _conversation_... honest to god feedback, discussion, and
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interest. Something practically unknown to me on Twitter.
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Now... as a certain TV writer posted on mastodon.social back in 2017:
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"I wonder if being on here during my twitter breaks is like when I
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tried to quit smoking using cigars", and he might be right (love your
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work Dan).
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I think the crux of the issue is how you approach your use of
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technology. And what kind of interactions that technology fosters. I
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don't want to turn this article around in the afterword and incinuate
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that any problematic relationship with social media is your own fault.
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It isn't. _But_, I think you have more power over your habits that
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you give yourself credit for.
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I have three accounts on the fediverse: a public one, where I post
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realistically the same stuff I posted on brand-Twitter before it made
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me miserable, a semi-public one, where I share selfies, random things
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I'm working on, and a sort of micro-blog, and a private one where I
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talk to just close friends. The expectation to have multiple accounts
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with varying degrees of publicness is ingrained into the fediverse in
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a way that I've never really seen it on Twitter.
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And yet, I wonder how much time I spend on the elephant website and
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whether it is useful to my life. In the end everything is a balancing
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act. And while I can still see a lot of good reasons to stick around
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on the fediverse (imperfect as it may be[^mstd]), I can no
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longer say the same for Twitter.
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As Elon Musk buys Twitter and you find yourself wondering where to
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take your online self, do consider to stop by the fediverse. But
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please don't use a switch in platform as an excuse to not examine the
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underlying relationships you have with _the online_.
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[^nature]:
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[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15004-0](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15004-0)
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[^sd]: Watch "The Social Dilemma (2020)". It's not a _great_
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documentary in my opinion as it falls short in its analysis of
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what social media and the manipulation of public opinion actually
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means, outside of a very narrow "someone help me balance this, my
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democracy is dying" but there are some insightful interviews in
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there by people who have worked on various social media sites
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talking about their own experiences with social media addiction.
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[^salari]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HiNVQkamA4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HiNVQkamA4)
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[^musk]: [https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/7/23391646/elon-musk-twitter-filings-acquisition-deposition-schedule](https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/7/23391646/elon-musk-twitter-filings-acquisition-deposition-schedule)
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[^musk2]: [https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/elon-musk-completes-44-bln-acquisition-twitter-2022-10-28/](https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/elon-musk-completes-44-bln-acquisition-twitter-2022-10-28/)
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[^mstd]: [https://sporks.space/2021/02/02/mastodon-really-is-crumbling-and-it-will-only-get-worse/](https://sporks.space/2021/02/02/mastodon-really-is-crumbling-and-it-will-only-get-worse/)
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