Opinion – Charles M. Blow: What 7 months of the restrictive Twitter diet taught me

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Seven months ago, when news broke of the possibility that Elon Musk would acquire Twitter, I made the decision to step away from the platform and use it only to alert people to things like publishing my column or my appearances on television.

I stopped checking Twitter daily. I stopped posting thoughts there. I stopped reacting to other accounts. From an integral part of my life, it turned into a tool I barely used.

Now that she’s shaky, it seems worth revealing to my readers what the experience of stepping away from the platform has been like. Lowering my frequency has transformed my life – for the better.

Engagement with Twitter, and likely large-scale engagement on other social networks, alters people’s behavior, possibly even their brains.

It took me weeks to get over the fear that I was “left out of the debate,” that I had irrationally withdrawn from the “public square.” In reality, these were classic withdrawal symptoms. I was hooked. But since so many people around shared the same addiction, it seemed to be completely normal.

At first, whenever I did some thinking about news I read or watched, I found it difficult not to share my thoughts. But as the weeks went by, it became clearer to me that not sharing was sensible.

Reflecting on ideas, as thinkers have throughout human history, has its merits. The idea grows, is trimmed, shaped and sharpened. It benefits when we work and improve it, as a matter of consideration and care.

Another thing is that most of the problems I’ve created for myself professionally have come from, in the heat of the moment, posting something on Twitter that I expressed myself badly about. So stepping away from Twitter was one of the smartest and healthiest things I’ve ever done.

I think one day we will look back on this moment in human history with amazement. Social media companies have converted all of us into a workforce that is unpaid, willingly producing free content, all out of the urge to be seen, heard, and appreciated.

We share our thoughts as soon as they pop into our heads, and strangers vote for those thoughts with their likes. We started to feel an insatiable desire for likes. We start running after them, evaluating the value of our thoughts based on them. Insecurity has been monetized. Narcissism has become a commodity.

The same thing applies to photos and videos. We’ve come to see it as normal to document and share every aspect of our lives, from the food we eat to the clothes we wear, to the advice we give to others and the latest fashion dance we managed to learn. Content, content, content.

If you weren’t creating content, were you actually living? If you hadn’t become a photographer, videographer, speaker and comedian, what would you be doing with your life? Were you a weirdo, a loser, or just plain old?

And so social media became a collection of short videos of attention-grabbing moments, an opportunity to chase after an idealized version of life that was just a fragment of reality at best, or a false reality at worst.

I needed to transform my relationship with social networks to make them less toxic. I had a real life to live in the real world. The act of making had to become more important than that of documenting.

The simple rules I laid out for myself in April were as follows: First, other than letting people know about my columns and posts, I would limit my social media use to a single app. That was, for me, Instagram, in part because it was the app I had the fewest followers on. I also liked being able to limit abusive and angry interactions.

Second, I would share real things I’ve done in the real world. I would still post a joke, a comment or something amusing here and there. From time to time even frivolous things. But, that’s okay, because my total post volume had gone down tremendously.

Every now and then I would look at some meaningless post, like I was cheating on my diet. But the goal of posting about things done in my life, as opposed to things made to go out on social media, has helped me heal my relationship with social media.

I think apps are great for artists. They provided a stage for many people who otherwise would not have one. I enjoy watching your presentations. I send fun clips to my friends every day. But we need to drop the expectation that we should all be artists. We are not and should not be — and there is nothing wrong with that.

I like where I am now in my use of social media. I like the fact that I no longer feel the need to post every day. I like the fact that now I only post what I like. I like the fact that I come across less aggression, less hate.

I don’t know if Twitter will survive the era of Elon Musk, and the turmoil in the company doesn’t worry me.

What I wanted to share with you is that you need Twitter—or any social platform—much less than you think. In fact, your life would seem so much fuller if you, too, distanced yourself from Twitter.

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