I uninstalled Twitter 4 weeks ago.
My relationship with Twitter is always on and off. I’ve spent like 2 years without it after making an account, delete the account and then making a new one, got a little bit more active and then spent 5 years without Twitter, and then I use that account again for small little fun here and there, after I started to work. So working (and commuting) took all my time and energy, I just don’t have enough energy and time to reserve for other hobby and I just wanted some quick entertainment and then became more active on Twitter. And yes those are excuses, anyway recently it got worsen. Hoho
A few months ago, I realized I spend a lot of time on Twitter, around 3-4 hours a day. Yes. That is crazy. Most of it will happen before I go to bed, and then I scroll and scroll and scroll. Just endless scrolling.
It is crazy how much I spent my time there. On Twitter, I feel like I can’t differentiate learning something new versus getting a bunch of useless information. I was just consuming information, a lot of them, feeling like I’ve learned new information, but in fact, I got tons of useless meaningless bubbles pieces and bits of facts (or gossips). I remember reading lots of threads about horror stories (ngl I enjoyed horror stories uhm), about scams (tons of it), about someone hating someone and then other people make a thread about it and his/her friend defend them by making new threads, news and information about whatever happening in the world (after all, that is the value of Twitter I guess).
But I feel like it affects how I receive information and how I focus. I always got distracted, I just open Twitter for unintentional leisure time, non-purposeful leisure, just scrolls, get some laugh from meme or tweet, and then scroll again, you never know exactly what you will get but it will surely entertain you. Not only the entertainment side but the news, the more ‘useful’ side of twitter, is actually, like I said before, just meaningless bubbles pieces and bits of things that will just scatter there in my mind after reading it. I mean, If I need to know about some topic, I could just google it. But it should start from me, from my curiosity, not just mindlessly fed by them.
Realizing that that is a crazy behavior and somewhat concerning, I tried to limit my time on Twitter. After all, I still need some ‘updates’ to see how’s my favorite artist think or do, and how my fellow fans reacting to it. So I was like..’ alright gonna set my time on Twitter maximum 2 hours’.
And then weeks and months passed. It was hard in the beginning, to stop looking at it, but the timer was so helpful, so I just see purposely on accounts I ‘cared’ about, and then close it even before the timer purposely kick me out of Twitter. Then the time has come, I lifted my timer for Twitter and just go on with my life using it normally. I sometimes check how many hours I spent on Twitter, and amazingly I never pass more than 1 hour 45 minutes. Whuw achievement! Lol.
Then back to the first sentence.
I uninstalled the Twitter app. And block it from my browser. From the beginning of August.
It is a challenge for me to just remove Twitter completely from my life again, just like those 2 years and good 5 years of not using Twitter after making the account. The first step would be this August, see how it goes this month, how I feel about it, etc. And then continue to challenge me month by month. And the time is up now! August ends beautifully with no Twitter on sight.
And yes so how is it so far?
1. I enjoy entertainment as it is. I get updates on Youtube for any new videos that may entertain me, that I usually get first from Twitter and see people talk about the video, bla bla bla. Just watching the video on Youtube feels better now, because I mean..this entertainment is for me to enjoy, so I shouldn’t care what other people’s reactions to it and see their live tweet about it and talking about it over and over, analyzing every single detail of the video etc. If I want to appreciate a video of my favorite artist, I can just leave a comment on Youtube and move on.
2. I reduced my overall unintentional leisure time in other things too. Like, I don’t listen to every radio show my favorite artist DJing now, because I don’t see people talk about it and get FOMO or something. Just one or two shows where I am also interested to see the guest, but it’s been...idk a month I guess since I don't listen to it regularly..so I gain more time to use purposely. Oh and I don’t watch IG live or Vlive from the artists I follow anymore. I become..’ stronger’ in avoiding those kinds of contents because when you don’t see people talk about it, no care, really.
3. It is amazing how freeing it is to not see pieces and bits of information scattered all around. No jumping and context switching in one per million seconds. I may don’t know the updated news and happenings, but I don’t need them. If the news is big enough to affect me, I would’ve heard it from my friends or families.
4. It reduces a significant amount of negativity from my life. Not like completely, there are always positive and negative in life of course. But it certainly helps, because I can focus on myself and my time. I don’t see people fighting on Twitter, or someone tries to correct other people or someone scam others, or see people complaining about everything all the time, or people manipulating other people, and so on. Out of sight, out of mind.
There is this famous quote from Mary Oliver
“Attention is the beginning of devotion”
And it is so true. If I pay too much attention to meaningless information and instant entertainment just like those on Twitter, I actually will start on devoting my time or worse, my life, to it. Meh.
So I’m trying to increase my purposeful intentional leisure time. If I got free time, I’m going to use it for things I want to do, not just squeezing them in my ‘packed’ schedule (packed but had time to waste on Twitter of course). Let’s see how this challenge goes this September!
Ps. Oh and don’t worry about Instagram. I unfollow accounts I don’t care about and put almost everyone besides close friends and family on mute since forever. So nothing to see there, I usually just open it to upload on my drawing and food account. And two weeks ago I uninstalled it completely from my phone because I don’t want the distraction to shift from Twitter to Instagram. I will just install it whenever I need to upload my drawing and food picture (the most important non-aesthetic food picture of mine) and uninstall it again. Just to give a little bit of friction there, so I just don’t access them often.
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