As the days roll on, Twitter becomes easier to avoid.
When the clock struck 12, and the balls dropped in Times Square, several goals ran through my mind. The usual New Year's resolutions that other people have, like wanting to go to the gym more, learning to speak a new language, and other things. Frankly, I don't even remember any of the other thoughts that I had that night, because they're so generic and have come up time and time already prior.
There was one thing that I thought about, however. It was to quit Twitter. In fact, I wrote this down in my journal in the last moments of 2023.
"It’s impossible to quit the Internet now, just by virtue of how interconnected our lives are with it, but I can try my best to control my cross-section with it. I currently have a streak going that checks how long I can go without checking Twitter."
So I did. I logged out of Twitter on my phone and on my laptop, I set a site blocker, and I started a streak on the "Days Since" app on my phone. First day went great. Second day, third day, fourth day. Double digits.
i’ve not touched twitter
i’m good
[2024/01/10 02:48]
It got to sixty days, and I'm pretty proud of myself for that. I was off Twitter for a full two months. There were the few odd exceptions here and there, but usually it was just a tweet that one of my friends would send me. Ironically, Twitter making the website unusable if you were not logged in was a boon, as I no longer had the magnet of reading the reply section to suck me back in. I could just close the tab and go back to minding my own business. In addition to being able to just view tweets with external embeds, it was really peaceful.
In this time, I started using other social media to fill that void. Some of my time has started to be split across Instagram as well, where I watch Reels to pass the time. My rule is very specific on Instagram though -- if the video is in English, I skip it. All of my Reels are essentially just reposts or official videos from 抖音（Douyin）and 小红书（Xiaohongshu）, Chinese social media platforms. That was a really nice change of pace from the constant doom and gloom. I felt like I was also learning a bit more -- I myself started to use 小红书 （Xiaohongshu）, and I felt like I was learning a lot of things that I normally would not have paid attention to. Makeup, techniques for trying to style hair, people trying to impress their dates, it was lighthearted. It was refreshing to see.
my insta is exclusively for watching chinese reels
and i quit twitter
[2024/02/12 19:28]
I finally went back to Twitter in March. I don't remember why. I lost the data on how long the streak went, so I can't show you the screenshot, but it was a solid two months.
[Deleted tweet.]
It's been a few weeks, but I still agree with that sentiment. It was absolutely worth the time. I don't know how much of Twitter's changes have directly impacted my worsening timeline, but it has become exclusively a hellhole of strife and conflict. Sure, the posts that I see are still generally ones that I would agree with, which some can argue is an echo chamber, but I use social media as an escape, not to wage or be inspired by fights. I can confidently say that I'm a social media addict. It's nothing to be proud of, but I fully assert that it's something that has invaded my life, and I really am trying my best to change that fact.
Back in November 2023, I watched a video that gave me a better perspective on the relationship between creating Internet media and avoiding the poison of social media. I think that it is worth a watch, even if you aren't an artist. It's a window into the phrase that people love to spout: "Just quit social media." Yeah, take a detox, plenty of people do it, and they seem great! They go on a two month long road trip, it's fantastic! It's not ever that simple, of course, because sometimes it is so ingrained into the job if you are a creative. If you're living off of fan donations and monthly subscriptions, it is impossible to detach.
I'm just a budding creative who has only recently discovered that she wants to do cool things and make cool stuff. There is no duty on my end that requires me to participate in social media, but I think that eventually that day might come, if I try hard enough, and I have to think about that.
Social media can be really useful for inspiration sometimes. If you use it right, you can get a very pretty board of ideas across your screen, whether you're using Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, anything. I think that my dream is five years down the line, I'm writing and publishing my own web novels and webcomics online for people to read. A l/nn webcomic would be really cool. It's hard to stay motivated, though. I ordered a sketchbook online, and it just got shipped to me today. There's a lot of aspirations that hinge on this -- if I give up, that order will have been for nothing.
Time is not on my side, though. It's scary to sit down and create things. The ghost of Twitter beckons to me. The month of March made me remember all the misery associated with scrolling through Twitter posts. People I followed would just be "dunking on" big posts they found, and I hated that. At that point, there may as well just be a negative retweet button that allows you to retweet a post while indicating that the retweeter dislikes this post. Nothing gained, nothing lost.
I think that the real fear I have toward social media is laziness. Complacency. If I'm not putting enough work in, then it's not worth it. And I want to create something that was made with blood, sweat, and tears. Even if I was writing something last minute, thirty minutes before the deadline, the back of my mind has still been working on this for weeks, and that's why all the ideas flow out so seamlessly. Staying on Twitter is complacency, and an easy escape from doing the things that I actually care about doing.
I'm quitting Twitter again. I already know what the experience was like the first time. It's not like a parent comes home with a cupcake for you every day that you are off Twitter, nothing like that. It's more like realising that you're becoming less burdened after no longer consuming a pint of molten lead every day. In a few months, if I do come back, it'll probably be on a private account, where the viewing experience is heavily filtered through Twitter Control Panel, it exclusively follows artists that post cool stuff, and not a single comedy account will be followed. That's my hope.
Until then, however, I've got quite a lot in the tank to write now. In the cycle of creativity, right now is a wonderful phase of action, where paragraphs upon paragraphs of ideas are written down. I've got four stories I can actively work on right now, and that's baffling to me, as someone who used to constantly edit the same draft over and over again for years without making it past the thirteenth chapter mark. If I'm feeling dry, there will probably come a future time where I'll turn to social media, but for now, I have a clear idea of what I need to do.
Instead of spending four hours a day on social media, whether they be post-form or message-form, I'll spend it all doing something better. Making something I'm proud of. If things go well, I'll be posting a new short story up here soon. It all started with a 5k word marathon, and everything just clicked in my head. Something completely original, something that is branded with my strengths, my flaws, my style, my flow. I hope you'll like it.
This has been Lynn. Thank you for reading.