have you quit twitter yet?

That’s actually a pretty good description of working there.

I still have a good time on twitter, but at this point I assume most of the people who ever followed me have me muted because the engagement ain't what it used to be. Either that or I'm just a worse person than I was 10 years ago.

I'm sure if I tweaked my feed and unfollowed a bunch of people, I would enjoy Twitter more than I do. But the main issue for me comes down to the intrinsically addictive quality of the platform. Whenever I have a spare moment, even walking from one room to another, I look at Twitter. If I do a good tweet, I obsessively check my notifications. I don't think I want to do that anymore. I don't like the way it has colonized my brain.

Whenever I have a spare moment, even walking from one room to another, I look at Twitter.

To be clear, this is hyperbolic. It's not every spare moment of every day, but it's often enough in moments like that that it feels...problematic. I want to know what happens to me when it's not influencing my habits so much.

Twitter is becoming a lost city. I explain the impending social media platform collapse my latest newsletter. https://t.co/5GigP1kS8V

— Annalee Newitz (@Annaleen) August 7, 2022

i don't disagree with the observation as an empirical observation, but the argument *why* that's happening doesn't make a ton of sense to me. twitter's leadership has always been unstable and (among users who are aware of it) very unpopular.

Yeah agree with that, lack of an edit button isn't going to end Twitter.

I think the observation about newsletters has something to it though. It is interesting that the most promising new money-maker for writers is via our last federated social network.

tumblr is still good btw

Without Twitter, I feel so disconnected from The Discourse. I don't need to tweet about it or read a bunch of unrelated bullshit that I don't care about. But I want to know what's going on.

There used to be app called Nuzzel that basically aggregated the most popular links that people you followed were sharing, and so you could log in and instantly see, for instance, a juicy scoop that had just dropped that everyone was talking about. I liked it as a way to get up to speed after being offline for a few hours. But I think someone also once described it as methadone for Twitter addicts. Anyway, Nuzzel was shut down a couple of years ago, and now the concept has been integrated into Twitter Blue. Which means that the only way to experience it again requires not only logging into Twitter but also paying for the privilege.

So far, the best substitute I've found (apart from refreshing ILX and the NYT website more frequently) is the Today in Tabs newsletter, but that's of course limited by what that one guy finds interesting. I wonder if I'll eventually just lose the desire and stop caring about What's Happening on the Internet (seems unlikely).

I have twitter and look at twitter but otherwise don't really interact with twitter. But lately I've been getting pushed a bunch of tweets from GOP assholes - like Desantis, Pompeo, Jim Jordan - who are followed by reporters I follow, which is making me really suspicious. Like, I get why a (say) CNN reporter would follow Jim Jordan (for example), but that same CNN reporter likely follows a millions politicians and political figures and the like. So why does Twitter's algorithm keep cherrypicking conservative asshole tweets to serve up?

They're surprisingly upfront about it at least?
https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/rml-politicalcontent

Huh. It's definitely weird to me, because it's only ramped up in the last week or so, and the algorithm should recognize (based on who I follow, and block) what I would or would not be interested in. Like, I don't want tweets from Nancy Pelosi, either, but if the robot was going to pick between serving me bullshit from her and bullshit from Jim Jordan, it should already know the answer before it even asks the question.

I know different people like different things, but I can fathom looking at Twitter in anything other than reverse chronological order.

Yeah, Twitter is chaotic enough without an algorithm feed.

Tweak New Twitter browser extension improves everything:

Overview
Remove algorithmic content from Twitter, hide news & trends, control which shared tweets appear on your timeline, and improve the UI
Remove algorithmic content:

– Keeps you on the Latest Tweets (chronological) timeline, automatically switching you back if Twitter tries to move you to the "Home" (algorithmic) timeline
– Hides the new timeline tabs if you have them
– Hide "Who to follow", "Follow some Topics" etc. in the timeline
– Hide "What's happening", "Topics to follow" etc. in the sidebar
– Hide "More Tweets" when linked to a tweet
– Hide algorithmic tweets based on likes, replies, lists, and suggested topics in the "Home" timeline, if you use it
– Hide Explore page contents

Control which tweets shared by people you follow appear on your timeline:

– Move Retweets to a separate timeline (default setting), or hide them entirely
– Move Quote Tweets and replies to them to a separate timeline, or hide them entirely (off by default)
– Hide tweets quoting accounts you've blocked or muted
– Mute quoting of specific tweets - adds a "Mute this conversation" menu item to Quote Tweets in the timeline

Chrome version. Firefox version.

Today is my 10-year Twitter anniversary. I haven't tweeted in over three weeks, which is surely the longest such period during the past decade. I've looked at tweets when they've been posted elsewhere, and I've also occasionally gone in and searched for stuff. I'll go so far as reading replies to whatever I'm clicking on. But what I haven't done is scroll through my own feed.

As I expected, I've been reading ILX more during the times when I otherwise would've been scrolling Twitter, which doesn't necessarily solve the basic compulsive tendency, but it feels less addictive. I still feel cut off from the discourse, but might be coming to terms with that, as the FOMO wears off and it becomes out of sight, out of mind. ✌️

I changed a couple of settings, and already my twitter experience (as such) is radically different. Suddenly it's all just ... settled down. I don't follow many people anyway, but now there's not nearly as much (or really any) garbage jumping to the front of the queue. It's just boring ol' posts from people every few minutes, which, yeah, really tramps down that dopamine hit and seems much less likely to get my outrage machine running, both good things.

I follow 1,300 people or so, and it's a fairly steady stream most of the time. Can't imagine what it's like for the psychopaths who follow like 30,000.

1,300 accounts, I mean (not all of them individual people)

lol I follow ... 82?

I appear to be following 2800 people, which is definitely insane, and mainly due to being polite.

Tweak New Twitter browser extension improves everything:

Thank you so much for this. That new Related Tweets thing was driving me up the wall.

i follow 120 people and have made 1,100 tweets in 14 years. maybe i am not even using twitter in the first place, statistically

i've made 21,422 ilx posts in roughly the same time period, and i think there's a lot more than 120 regulars here

I use Twitter to talk to my irl friends as well as Twitter pals. And since my brother died, it's become a real lifeline for keeping in touch with his friends in the very lowest-key way possible. Plus jokes.

I wonder if people use Slack for liek small freinds groups

My husband and I use it to talk to each other. Neither of us uses it in a work context, so it's perfect.

get the impression most small groups are on whatsapp or signal (or local equivalents, e.g. fb messenger, kakaotalk, etc.). slack and discord works too, but they're a bit computery for a lot of people.

I wonder if people use Slack for liek small freinds groups

― | (Latham Green), Wednesday, September 7, 2022 3:25 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ever wonder what happened to the Chicago threads?

I haven't followed many more than 1000 accounts at a time on twitter, but it's fun following and unfollowing different accounts to change things up. I like that all of it is very much in public

slack sounds like some kind of gossipy nextdoor thing to me. I'm probably wrong in thinking that, but it doesn't seem appealing at all

I heard that Slack is great for expressing opinions about message board posters!

I think most people use it for work.

I've been doxxed once for a review, and I've seen grisly shit, but not once have I thought about quitting Twitter. Maybe I've screened it too well. I gotta click on Nazi shit to get knots in my stomach.

I will always follow you Alfred

love you

slack sounds like some kind of gossipy nextdoor thing to me. I'm probably wrong in thinking that, but it doesn't seem appealing at all

not really. more like private IRC servers.

I tried joining a Discord group (board? community? I don’t fucking know) and hated everything about it instantly. Twitter is definitely my favorite social platform. I really need to wipe my Facebook account, though. That is a true hell site at this point. It’s got so many promoted posts that it’s like trying to communicate with people by shouting at them from the opposite end of a mall.

I have a few middle-aged friends on Marco Polo and they recently invited me to try it out. Instant revulsion. I guess it’s kind of a private group-based TikTok?

get the impression most small groups are on whatsapp or signal
The reason we use Slack as a private messaging service is because it has a different alert sound, so we always know to check it asap. If WhatsApp let you set different alert sounds for different groups, we would probably just use that. (Maybe it does now? I haven't checked in a while.) We used to use a couples app called Avocado, which was great. You could store lists in it and you always knew for sure who the other person was. But most couples apps are too cutesy. "Send your babe a heart sticker!" Yeah, no. I just want to remind him to get paracetamol on his way home.

I heard that Slack is great for expressing opinions about message board posters!

― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 8 September 2022 bookmarkflaglink

That's right.

the confusion is entertaining me because I remember the mid 90s when a few seasoned irc users would grouse about instant messaging apps

"why would I need icq/aim/etc when I can just send a private message on irc?"

and now most workplaces have rotated all the way through only having email -> private message apps -> teams/slack/etc and we've gone full circle back to irc

The Queen is about to die you can't quit now

elon hasn't bought it yet, deal will close in 3-6 months. so no point quitting now

― flopson, Wednesday, April 27, 2022 3:20 AM (six months ago)

point: flopson

People are going to be allowed to send death threats to one another.

Why quit now?

Thank my zonxu stars for ile

I deactivated last night. If you don't reactivate in 30 days, then they let you consider it deleted (although info from it may still be around). Hopefully, even if he does fire 3/4 of employees, as was
recently reported intention, hackers won't get to little old me before then.

I never, in eight years of posting, had any trolls, any other kind of problem. It was fun.

i'm not going to quit