ohryan.ca

A Web Developer in Winnipeg

I haven’t tweeted in a week

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July 11, 2013 is the day I realized Twitter was turning me into a bad internet person.

I watched my Twitter stream flow by all day that day and I couldn’t think of a nice, polite, constructive response to any single one of the tweets flowing by. It’s not that the people I follow are terrible human beings who post mindless drivel. In fact, I’ve recently trimmed my followers down to a short list of quality tweeters.

I realized that I was becoming a snarky asshole. Every moment I spent looking at Twitter was a moment I spent forcing myself not to be a jerk in public.

In my previous post I wrote that I use Twitter as a “real news” source. But to be honest over the past week, I haven’t felt like I’m missing anything.

I doubt I’ll write another 13,367 tweets.

The larger question here is whether this is truly a “me problem” or a Twitter problem.

Comments

4 responses to “I haven’t tweeted in a week”

  1. odessa Avatar
    odessa

    Good post – you could just write the opposite of all the mean things you are thinking…. just a thought….

  2. rss reader Avatar
    rss reader

    I look at Twitter about 10 hours a day. I don’t generally post snarky things, and it’s not because I’m forcing myself not to do so. Actually I’m snarkier IRL.

    1. ohryan Avatar
      ohryan

      How do you manage to pull this off?

  3. pensato Avatar
    pensato

    You may have noted that I’ve been on Twitter far less these days also.

    Recognizing the relative value to cost of it to my life and work has been really important. If its cost, for you, is the provocation of sentiments you wouldn’t otherwise harbour, that’s pretty steep for what may not be that much benefit.

    These days, I skim it from time to time and reply when it makes sense.

    Otherwise, I’m mostly silent. I prefer RSS, and as you know I’ve been experimenting with a different approach to link / thought sharing.

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