The notion that some people want to escape the bleak realities of their grim existences is not particularly new. One just has to look at the history of alcohol

The notion that some people want to escape the bleak realities of their grim existences is not particularly new. One just has to look at the history of alcohol consumption; for parts of history, a lot of people were drinking quite a bit. E.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alcoholic_drinks#Medieval_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alcoholic_drinks#Me... Sure, people also use Twitter for that. And almost everything else. As a kid that was surely a big part of why I read huge quantities of SF novels. But that doesn't mean that the only point of having a beer or reading a paperback or using Twitter is time-wasting escapism. I learn a ton from Twitter, getting insights and experiences from people I never would have heard from otherwise. Other people get real community out of it. Still others find it professionally useful: networking with colleagues, finding jobs, keeping up with their fields. So maybe you're using it wrong and maybe it's not for you. But your inability to get something out of it doesn't tell you much about the experience of a lot of people.