I Deactivated My Twitter Account

I decided to deactivate my Twitter account after having it for over ten years. I enjoyed Twitter because I am a people person and like to talk. Twitter is a great way to stay informed on current events, trends and opinions. There was a group of people on Twitter that I interacted with regularly. I regularly interacted with sports fans, particularly Chiefs fans, pop music, movie and reality TV fans, non MAGA Christians and anti Republican Democrats. I’ll miss them. They were fun.

Social media can be enjoyable but you need to pick and choose your interactions carefully just like in the real world. The new Twitter algorithm changed and accounts show up on my TL that I don’t follow. I don’t see tweets from the accounts I decided to follow. I don’t know if Twitter is cramming nonsense down everyone’s throat but it is definitely trying to force me to interact with trashy content.

Twitter has been trying to force me to content concerning rappers I’ve never heard of, men who hate women and MAGA. No thanks. I can’t block my way out of the situation because there is plenty of obnoxious content to replace the accounts I block. I tried to engage with the accounts I don’t agree with in an argumentative tone. It may have worked to an extent but again there is always more angering content to take its place.

I just decided to activate my account. I’ve been questioning if my Twitter use was healthy anyway. Deactivated accounts can be reactivated withing thirty days. I haven’t decided if I will reactivate. I may start a new account one day. But I feel peace and less tension with Twitter out of my life for the moment. Deactivating Twitter was a good decision for me.

I’m tempted to deactivate Instagram too. IG does the same thing. They don’t show you posts from people you chose to follow. They put things on your TL that you didn’t ask for. But IG is a bit different because there are hundreds of pictures of me on there. It’s like a little shrine to myself. I probably need to deactivate my IG account in order not to feed vanity. I feel like the reluctance to get rid of IG is a lesson in humility and idol worship. But the thought of it going away makes me very sad. That probably means I need to deactivate it. I’ll let you know how it all goes.