No More Twitter

7 days ago I changed my password on Twitter and did not save the new password anywhere. That act logged me out on every device, and since I didn't record the new password, I'd have to do a password reset to log back in.

Muscle memory took me to the home page a few times on Sunday and Monday, purging Twitter.com from my browser history on Monday stopped that. I have probably watched a couple of videos that were embedded on blogs or Substack newsletters without logging into Twitter.

And it's all been fine. I don't know what stupid crap Musk has been posting, and I don't care. I haven't had any racist or misogynist bullshit from Republican politicians retweeted into my timeline, because I haven't seen my timeline. I set up a filter on Mastodon to filter out anything shared from Twitter to minimize my exposure there. I have not been even a little bit tempted to log back in .

I can't think of a single thing I'm missing by not being on Twitter. It's a horrible place to get your news. The instant hot takes from everybody trying to be the first with something are usually wrong, often on purpose. The world did just fine for thousands of years without instant access to hot takes on the day's events, and the evidence very strongly suggests that society is worse for the access today. If it's really important it'll be on CNN and a thousand other news sites within 15 minutes.

I'll also note that if you were following me on Twitter you didn't notice I wasn't there for the last week. Social media "relationships" are very shallow. If you see somebody every day at work or even just at a coffee shop you'll notice quickly if they aren't around. But on social media, you can literally interact with somebody daily and you won't notice when that stops. In most cases I'd bet people didn't remember their interaction with me on Twitter 10 minutes after it happened. It's just the nature of social media, it's mostly shallow, fleeting interactions that we mistake for something meaningful and significant.

So does this mean I'm quitting all social media? No.

Facebook has a lot of the same issues as Twitter, but with the addition of the Facebook Purity browser extension it's moderately useful still for staying in touch with friends and family. And the reality is that it is the only way to know what's going on around town. Pretty much all shows, fairs, etc. are promoted most heavily there. Nobody should use the Facebook app though, that thing is nuclear powered spyware. Just use the web browser on your computer or phone.

The same goes with Instagram. I barely use IG. I post a photo once or twice a month and the same 10 or 12 friends will like it. The IG experience in a web browser has not degraded as much as the experience in the app. Ditch that app too.

Ditch all the apps. There are many days I miss my old Nokia phone that just did calls and text.