Why I'm Leaving Twitter
Like addicted gamblers, Twitter users will get sick, and they will suffer the consequences of their compulsion.
by Ben Cohen
About a month ago, I deleted Facebook and Twitter from my iPhone. I also stopped logging onto Twitter on my desktop. It was a decision taken after feeling completely overwhelmed by the amount of information I was being exposed to, and my urge to engage with far too much of it.
In the heyday of The Daily Banter, Twitter was a central part of our strategy to engage with our audience. We automated tweets and did not engage too actively at first, spending most of our time chatting with our large Facebook community. But over time, I became more fascinated with the platform and began to engage with it on a daily basis. We had the Banter account and my own Twitter handle, and I spent a considerable amount of time reading tweets, responding to them, and getting into furious arguments with, well, anyone and everyone.
After a while, I began using Twitter outside of Banter related activities to get into it with other writers, activists and right wing lunatics. I enjoyed the fight, and I enjoyed the art of crafting pithy responses to people within the Twitter word count limit. I got a number of high profile writers/celebs/activists following me, and I woke up each day thinking about arguments I was having the day before. I was getting into with the then head of the Facebook newsfeed Adam Mosseri, journalists Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald, and a host of far left conspiracy theorists. I got blocked by right wing lunatics and prominent venture capitalists, was attacked by armies of trolls and ideologues, and enjoyed every minute of it. This was the platform president Trump used to govern America on, so this was where the action was and I was going to be a part of it. Or so I thought.
After Facebook destroyed the viability of The Daily Banter as a standalone news site and we moved onto this newsletter earlier this year, something strange happened to me. I had more time to think about the articles I was writing, more freedom to observe the media from a distance, and more opportunities to write about the things I was really interested in. In other words, the exact opposite of Twitter.
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The more I engaged on Twitter, the more distracted my mind was and the less able I was to craft thoughtful articles. Twitter was a platform that rewarded bad behavior - anger, hostility and aggressive interactions with other human beings. These things were not good for me, or my state of mind, and I began wondering what the point of it was. I wasn’t going to change anyone’s opinion by berating them in 280 characters, and I couldn’t formulate my own thoughts properly either. It was just an online shouting match that favored the quick witted and angry. The better you were at “owning” someone on Twitter, the more followers you got, creating a vicious cycle that encouraged worse and worse behavior.
Where was all this going? By nature, I’m not an aggressive person and like to treat people respectfully. I definitely like a good debate and I’m not one to be pushed around, but I prefer to find common ground with people and see past differences rather than focus on them. Twitter was forcing me into a tribal mentality: me vs the assholes. And the assholes where everywhere. It dawned on me though that I was looking for the assholes — the more idiotic and vindictive, the better. Then I could feel justified about my rage and sleep well knowing that I was doing battle with genuinely bad people. But what was the point if it didn’t do anything? Shouting at someone on Twitter is like shouting at the ocean. Your voice simply disappears into the vast, bottomless sea of opinions where it dies a lonely death along with millions of other tweets just like it. Sure there are a few real influencers on Twitter who make a difference with their tweets (think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for example), but most people are just posturing to get more followers and letting rip for the sake of it.
Like every other social media platform, Twitter is designed to make you addicted to it. Like a slot machine, you can stay there for hours and never get bored. But like addicted gamblers, Twitter users will get sick, and they will suffer the consequences of their compulsion. Anxiety, burnout, and a general feeling of despair that the world is full of assholes. Because if you live for Twitter, it becomes your reality. And that version of reality really isn’t much fun.
I’m still on Facebook, and I post the occasional photo to Instagram. I’d like to give up at least one of those in the near future, but I’m quite proud of myself for stopping Twitter cold-turkey, so won’t beat myself up too badly. It really wasn’t that hard, and I feel a whole lot better.
More importantly though, I no longer have to read Donald Trump’s morning Twitter rants, and for that reason alone it has been more than worth it.
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I've cut way back on Twitter - rarely tweet, mostly interact with people I like, have blocked thousands of Berners. I had a similat experience, I felt bad and angry a lot of the time. I also fely guilty because I discovered just how pithily mean I could be and it wasn't flattering.