6 ms·

Read-only, only linear timeline for people you follow, don’t read the replies. This… isn’t hard?

gregjor 4y ago
I didn't say I quit because I found it hard to follow or read. I just never came across anything of interest on social media that I didn't hear about some other way. I don't have any interest in following celebrities or "experts." Anyone I care to have a conversation with I can reach by phone or email. I was on Twitter for five years, LinkedIn since it started (quit two years ago), Facebook on and off for several years, Instagram for a while. I thought I would get useful information, job leads, and stay connected to my family and friends. Instead I got a lot of useless but seemingly urgent "news," endless spam and friend requests from people I don't know, and had to witness multiple fights about politics and religion and social issues that wouldn't have even started in person. I learned about bizarre conspiracy theories I wouldn't have known about, and got some strong opinions about things like gun ownership, gay and trans rights, and immigrants, but I can't say that any of that added to my life. I have a friend who follows people like Sam Harris and tells me all the time what so-and-so expert had to say about some social or political issue. So what? How does what Sam Harris (or any "public intellectual" or "expert") thinks or says affect me, really? If I valued repeating what I read on Twitter to other people to make myself feel smarter or better-informed, or if I cared what Elon Musk had to say from his bathroom this morning, I would spend my time on social media I suppose.
- sshine 4y ago
  Some much less noisier channels for expert insight are tech talks and podcasts. You can select the expert, the subject, and have a respectful monologue/dialogue.
  - gregjor 4y ago
    I agree about talks and podcasts. I have found some useful material on YouTube, but I ignore the comments. I can also read books, magazine articles, book reviews, and web sites that don't have long comment threads that quickly spiral into meaningless arguments and toxic behavior.
- misnome 4y ago
  But the main point I was making was that you disagreed with the GP that Twitter was "as good as you make it". Your stated reason for disagreeing with this was that "it involve[ed] interacting with all kinds of people, and just a few of them can make it terrible, completely outside of your control". My point was that this was entirely inside your control, and it is relatively easy to avoid these parts, thus, "as good as you make it" is a relatively reasonable statement to make. It sounds like you didn't get what you were expecting. It is perfectly possible to use twitter without treating it as a "fake town square and social club" (albeit, a lot harder if you only interact with the web site and not a third party client). You don't have to look at, or participate in the drama. I've used twitter for 13 years, and probably only ever looked at the "trending" topic, three times? I only see people I follow, and if they retweet stuff that I don't want to see, then I turn off their retweets. I almost never tweet, except to attempt to helpfully reply sometimes. I delete my tweets after a few hours. It absolutely is what you make it.
  - gregjor 4y ago
    Limiting whom you follow and not tweeting means you have some control over what shows up in your feed. It doesn't mean you made anything useful out of it, though I can understand how other people might think they have made something useful. By analogy I can control the real-life interactions I have with people to some degree, but not completely. I can choose not to engage with family members who spout conspiracy theories, just ignore them, or not put myself in the situation in the first place. But I can't always avoid that in real life because I can't always control those interactions. With social media, though, I can choose not to participate at all, based on weighing the value I might get against the downsides of time waste and nonsense I have to read, skip over, block, unfollow. In my experience with social media the downsides always far outweighed the benefits, and that was before taking into account the platforms harvesting and selling my information. If something important happens in the world, or some new tool or technology comes out that I might care about, I will find out through some other channel (here, for example) that doesn't come with so many downsides. Other people will have different experiences. I mainly want to push back on the idea that we have to use social media to participate in some imaginary "global town square," or that we will miss something vitally important if we don't pay attention. We don't, and we won't.

I didn't say I quit because I found it hard to follow or read. I just never came across anything of interest on social media that I didn't hear about some other way. I don't have any interest in following celebrities or "experts." Anyone I care to have a conversation with I can reach by phone or email. I was on Twitter for five years, LinkedIn since it started (quit two years ago), Facebook on and off for several years, Instagram for a while. I thought I would get useful information, job leads, and stay connected to my family and friends. Instead I got a lot of useless but seemingly urgent "news," endless spam and friend requests from people I don't know, and had to witness multiple fights about politics and religion and social issues that wouldn't have even started in person. I learned about bizarre conspiracy theories I wouldn't have known about, and got some strong opinions about things like gun ownership, gay and trans rights, and immigrants, but I can't say that any of that added to my life. I have a friend who follows people like Sam Harris and tells me all the time what so-and-so expert had to say about some social or political issue. So what? How does what Sam Harris (or any "public intellectual" or "expert") thinks or says affect me, really? If I valued repeating what I read on Twitter to other people to make myself feel smarter or better-informed, or if I cared what Elon Musk had to say from his bathroom this morning, I would spend my time on social media I suppose.

sshine 4y ago
Some much less noisier channels for expert insight are tech talks and podcasts. You can select the expert, the subject, and have a respectful monologue/dialogue.
- gregjor 4y ago
  I agree about talks and podcasts. I have found some useful material on YouTube, but I ignore the comments. I can also read books, magazine articles, book reviews, and web sites that don't have long comment threads that quickly spiral into meaningless arguments and toxic behavior.
misnome 4y ago
But the main point I was making was that you disagreed with the GP that Twitter was "as good as you make it". Your stated reason for disagreeing with this was that "it involve[ed] interacting with all kinds of people, and just a few of them can make it terrible, completely outside of your control". My point was that this was entirely inside your control, and it is relatively easy to avoid these parts, thus, "as good as you make it" is a relatively reasonable statement to make. It sounds like you didn't get what you were expecting. It is perfectly possible to use twitter without treating it as a "fake town square and social club" (albeit, a lot harder if you only interact with the web site and not a third party client). You don't have to look at, or participate in the drama. I've used twitter for 13 years, and probably only ever looked at the "trending" topic, three times? I only see people I follow, and if they retweet stuff that I don't want to see, then I turn off their retweets. I almost never tweet, except to attempt to helpfully reply sometimes. I delete my tweets after a few hours. It absolutely is what you make it.
- gregjor 4y ago
  Limiting whom you follow and not tweeting means you have some control over what shows up in your feed. It doesn't mean you made anything useful out of it, though I can understand how other people might think they have made something useful. By analogy I can control the real-life interactions I have with people to some degree, but not completely. I can choose not to engage with family members who spout conspiracy theories, just ignore them, or not put myself in the situation in the first place. But I can't always avoid that in real life because I can't always control those interactions. With social media, though, I can choose not to participate at all, based on weighing the value I might get against the downsides of time waste and nonsense I have to read, skip over, block, unfollow. In my experience with social media the downsides always far outweighed the benefits, and that was before taking into account the platforms harvesting and selling my information. If something important happens in the world, or some new tool or technology comes out that I might care about, I will find out through some other channel (here, for example) that doesn't come with so many downsides. Other people will have different experiences. I mainly want to push back on the idea that we have to use social media to participate in some imaginary "global town square," or that we will miss something vitally important if we don't pay attention. We don't, and we won't.