Some thoughts on my recent Twitter break

Various people have suggested that taking a break from social networks – Twitter in particular – can be A Good Thing™. So I tried it, for a couple of weeks. Here’s what I learned. 1. Why a break? The reasons that everyone else cites, I guess. A sense that my stream has swung away from essential information towards noise and distraction, despite attempts to curate it carefully by following “good people”. A realisation that I was habitually reaching for it without thinking, or knowing why. The empty serotonin hit of checking for likes. For me, a growing sense of people existing in bubbles, shouting into echo chambers, making themselves feel better but making no meaningful difference. Like the cartoon says (see right, click for the link). So I took a break simply by logging out of it on all devices. I wagered (mostly correctly) that the inconvenience of simply having to look up and enter a password would be enough to keep me away. 2. Fear of missing out Indeed, there was FOMO for a couple of days. So much so that I logged in briefly a couple of times, early on in the break. Whereupon I scanned the stream, realised that I was not really missing anything important and logged out again. It’s OK to do that. It will pass. 3. Oh, FriendFeed At the risk of sounding like a relic from 2008: we had this network, called FriendFeed. It worked because first and foremost, it centred on items with information. The people who coalesced around those it...
Source: What You're Doing Is Rather Desperate - Category: Bioinformatics Authors: Tags: networking health productivity social networking twitter Source Type: blogs