4 ms·

It was actually pretty great at content discovery. The content didn't have to fit in a tweet, just a link to the content. Or an announcement. Unfortunately e

It was actually pretty great at content discovery. The content didn't have to fit in a tweet, just a link to the content. Or an announcement. Unfortunately even the great people I used to follow have devolved into politics and it's no longer enjoyable.

lovecg 6y ago
I had a similar experience. Twitter was amazing in the early days of Covid for discovering high quality information when following researchers and front line workers. But all my efforts to keep politics out of my feed were futile. All it takes is one person to like one controversial tweet for the flood gates to burst open, and I would be there scrolling away. I just gave up eventually and deleted the app.
- ed_elliott_asc 6y ago
  Muting words helps
rconti 6y ago
I often wonder if it work for some personalities vs others. For lack of better terms, I see the two personalities as community-minded and leadership-minded. I've got this idea in my head where community-minded are people who like forums, facebook groups, etc. The leadership-minded like thought leaders. This might be a pro athlete, it might be a cutting-edge researcher, it might be the president. You might be a follower of many leaders, or you might be a leader yourself (or both). On Twitter, people can gain celebrity by actual thought leadership, or just applying their "street" popularity to the online world. Or by loudly shouting the most outrageous things you can, for clicks. Think of how people try to be "influencers" on Instagram or YouTube, for the dollars or for the attention. When I've tried to make Twitter work for me, I've worked to curate my feed with thought leaders (and a few F1 drivers). But I find that I often just don't care about what they have to say except on a very very narrow set of topics. I don't care about celebrity, and the thought leaders don't post often enough about the topic they lead on, for the signal to be worth the noise. And I'm not interested in trying to be a "leader" for leadership's sake, but then, on the rare occasion when you have something to say, your voice is unimportant, because you don't have followers. I've always been somewhat allergic to celebrity, and I'm not saying people who find value from Twitter are celebrity-seekers, but it does feel like the mindset is orthogonal to mine, and the value I derive from social networks, I have a very hard time deriving from Twitter.

lovecg 6y ago

I had a similar experience. Twitter was amazing in the early days of Covid for discovering high quality information when following researchers and front line workers. But all my efforts to keep politics out of my feed were futile. All it takes is one person to like one controversial tweet for the flood gates to burst open, and I would be there scrolling away. I just gave up eventually and deleted the app.

ed_elliott_asc 6y ago
Muting words helps

rconti 6y ago

I often wonder if it work for some personalities vs others. For lack of better terms, I see the two personalities as community-minded and leadership-minded. I've got this idea in my head where community-minded are people who like forums, facebook groups, etc. The leadership-minded like thought leaders. This might be a pro athlete, it might be a cutting-edge researcher, it might be the president. You might be a follower of many leaders, or you might be a leader yourself (or both). On Twitter, people can gain celebrity by actual thought leadership, or just applying their "street" popularity to the online world. Or by loudly shouting the most outrageous things you can, for clicks. Think of how people try to be "influencers" on Instagram or YouTube, for the dollars or for the attention. When I've tried to make Twitter work for me, I've worked to curate my feed with thought leaders (and a few F1 drivers). But I find that I often just don't care about what they have to say except on a very very narrow set of topics. I don't care about celebrity, and the thought leaders don't post often enough about the topic they lead on, for the signal to be worth the noise. And I'm not interested in trying to be a "leader" for leadership's sake, but then, on the rare occasion when you have something to say, your voice is unimportant, because you don't have followers. I've always been somewhat allergic to celebrity, and I'm not saying people who find value from Twitter are celebrity-seekers, but it does feel like the mindset is orthogonal to mine, and the value I derive from social networks, I have a very hard time deriving from Twitter.