I quit Twitter in 2015 when my supposedly level-headed friends (most of whom are fellow software engineers) lost their minds and switched to posting only about politics. Twitter immediately lost all utility. To me, politics has little to do with good governance, and is thus a kind of misinformation or spam. I opted right out of all that. I’ve been much happier ever since.
When Trump announced his first campaign in the quaint old days in 2015, I began cleansing my Twitter feed of anyone who switched from nerd stuff to politics. After a couple of months I was left with no one to follow, so I left Twitter entirely. Good riddance!
The only way I was going back to twitter was if Musk took over, took decisive action, and it stopped being a left wing echo-chamber.
But wasting more of my life on social media is not a net positive.
So overall I'm glad, I can continue to ignore twitter exists except when people occasionally link a tweet (which half the time I regret clicking anyway).
ironically one of the reasons i've entertained the idea of quitting twitter is b/c of annoying things that showed up in my feed from the author(and others). But I just un-followed him instead. the technical things I'm interested in, but I dont care for the politics so much.
i quit twitter after years of using it when i got exhausted of having to see political tweets from anyone i was following in tech. i just want to follow certain topics, but unfortunately the mute feature is not enough to filter out all the crap
Lol, I joined Twitter around 2013 because it seemed like everyone in tech was there and it'd be a good way to keep up.
Then I saw cross talk between radical Left Twitter and people I followed in tech. Uh oh. I got into exactly one political argument and realised that with my ADHD impulse control, my career, and my belief that homo sapiens is sexually dimorphic, I should not be on that site of I valued eating.
I deleted the account. Now I read Twitter, but I will not log in. Ever. I also deleted my Facebook account around that time.
Nowadays, I only use my real identity with people I know in private groups on self hosted servers. Even commenting here with a pseudonym gives me pause; every opinionated post is a liability if you get doxxed.
Disconnecting from twitter was one of the best moves I ever made. Being subjected to a high volume/low quality stream of garbage is not good for the mind.
100%, great take. I tried following some tech people I admire and hit the same issue and just unfollowed them. I now only use twitter for the sole-purpose of getting political/world news when I want it. But using it for anything technically interesting is dead to me.
I left about 6 years ago. I became increasingly frustrated that nobody was talking about real issues, namely politics, and that celebrities weren’t using their vast reach to amplify messages. Twitter was for tweeting what one had for lunch.
Well, look at Twitter now. I got what I wanted, and I hate it. I was wrong. I’d happily go back to early Twitter.
reply