5 ms·
Flip side: I would destroy Twitter. Twitter is absolutely the worst thing to happen to the internet. Low effort, inherently self-aggrandizing and standoffish,
by Mizza 6y ago
Flip side: I would destroy Twitter.
Twitter is absolutely the worst thing to happen to the internet. Low effort, inherently self-aggrandizing and standoffish, literally impossible to express a complex or nuanced thought. The only people I know who regularly engage with Twitter are extreme narcissists and conformist thinkers, and yet all of Twitter considers themselves to be the Important People. This mentality has crept into all spheres of public life.
Good blogging requires effort, effective communication and something interesting and original to say. Those days are long gone.
- SpaceManNabs 6y agoI find twitter great for following astrophysics researchers and optimization/DL researchers.
- grenoire 6y agoI think the popularity of Twitter is due to people not wanting to express complex or nuanced thoughts. If it weren't Twitter, somebody else would be in that space. It seems to me that the ones who are participating in such networks never intended to put too much effort into their communication or arguments anyway. It's a supply and demand issue, not a tool's existence.
- _bxg1 6y agoAll you have to do is viciously mute/unfollow people and words that are remotely in the sphere of something someone might get angry about. My twitter feed is 95% weird humor and cool art/tech projects. It takes some work but it's doable.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- zhdc1 6y agoTwitter is great for pushing current events or initiating discussion on less well thought out topics. It's not a good place for conversation. And that's ok, as long as users understand these limitations and there's an alternative (blogs or forums) that interested participants can turn to.
- Jasper_ 6y agoMy honest recommendation for Twitter: Don't use the built-in systems to follow anyone. Keep bookmarks on people's profiles and visit manually if you want to know what they're up to. The timeline is a terrible idea. Twitter works really well for me because of this.
- rement 6y agotweetdeck.twitter.com[0] works really well for this. It does not "filter" your feed in any way (as far as I know). You follow a hashtag you see every tweet for that hashtag. You follow a user and you can filter out "retweets" and "likes" to only see what the user posts (I wanted to see what @POTUS tweets and it's nothing only retweets). A column in tweetdeck can be a user, a search, a list, a hashtag, and more. Every column shows ever tweet and they mostly come in realtime. [0] https://tweetdeck.twitter.com https://tweetdeck.twitter.com
- dewey 6y agoI'm not sure I understand, what's the problem with following people and using the timeline (maybe even in a third party client that sorts it chronologically)? What do you gain by only navigating to profiles manually?
- ironmagma 6y agoThe timeline is controlled via algorithm, and either filters or selects things to show you based on an uncontrollable process which is likely just meant to make you more outraged, annoyed, etc. to keep you engaged with the platform. Not only is that unhealthy, but it doesn’t make for an enjoyable experience almost by definition.
- aloknnikhil 6y agoHonestly, the only thing I really like about Twitter is Moments. They aggregate the current trend from various tweets and compile a good enough summary to get you upto speed. But this is so deeply buried in the UI, it's a shame.
- snackematician 6y agoCounterpoint: Twitter is the preferred social media among scientists, and a good place to keep up with the latest papers and developments. The quality of discussion on science twitter can be pretty good too, despite the character limit.
- Enginerrrd 6y agoI'm skeptical that anybody's Twitter is on par with the quality and engagement you see from something like Terrance Tao's WordPress blog. Unless you're including the linked content for preprints and the like, I just don't see it. The depth just isn't there. As a way to survey news in a field, sure, twitter definitely has value but the content on Twitter itself isn't really what I'd consider quality.
- jerrac 6y agoI have never understood the appeal of Twitter. (Or short Facebook/G+ status update type content) I mean, what is so great about seeing lots of really short posts? You can't say anything truly meaningful. It's just a bunch of pointless noise.
- buboard 6y agoIt's a replacement for RSS subscribe
- jcadam 6y agoI agree. Not to mention tweeting seems to carry the highest risk of destroying your career and/or social life of pretty much any other online medium. It probably has something to do with the whole "casual communication" focus. People tend to put a lot more thought (and time) into a blog post. I think it's been years since I posted anything on twitter.
- ankeshanand 6y agoIf you carefully curate who you follow, Twitter can be more like a bunch of subreddits, with the added signal of knowing who's posting. So it ends up a being great way to keep up with small communities.
- buboard 6y agoTwitter is the best because it's about the individual , not the groupthink. Most aggregators fail hard because groupthink destroys them, but on twitter you can follow individuals and ignore everyone else. You are not forced to follow trends (like in most aggregators, even here) , and you can even follow people banished from most aggregators (e.g. Trump)
- ras2020 6y agoI really understand your feelings. A ton of misinformation, disinformation, and fake news, make Twitter a terrible platform. It looks much better than Facebook. Many people are being controlled something to say what some want to hear. Attacking and harassing users is what I see every day. I don't know where we can find another platform that gives and updates us.