Hello Emma, and thanks for the name check and for the lovely words. I really enjoyed reading this, and you did remind me of why I went on Twitter in the first place. As you pointed out I left some time ago, facebook too etc. and apart from times when people assume I know something has happened to them because they posted, so thought I would've seen it (happened with a friend who's mum had died and I didn't know because I hadn't seen her for over a month) - apart from those times, I really, really don't regret it. I became more focused. I also removed all notifications (including the red number on messaging apps so when I looked at my phone I didn't know how many emails were waiting) and that made me much more present with friends and family. But then I'm not a writer who needs to share what they're doing, so I don't lose out because of that. I'm not recommending people come off, that's totally up to them. And for those who wish to stay I just wish there was a better replacement, or a better owner. I do accept you and I don't communicate like we used to in that casual way, so let's go old school and have a drink when either of us is in the same city. More power to your elbow. Lots of love, Paul
Good piece as ever. You sum up the pros and cons really well. There is that additional challenge that I recognise exists for journalists and writers such as yourself, namely, that you have amassed a strong following that I fully understand is something you do not want to just dispense with. We average folk don't have that issue to content with, so it changes the calculation somewhat.
I did a lot of overthinking about leaving or staying. I logged off for a week while I was abroad on holiday - it happened to coincide with the week of the riots. On returning, I logged back on for a few hours, and just thought, 'no let's come off for good'. Account deleted. I was glued to the thing for years and especially so during the Tory years and then the General Election.
I am enjoying avoiding the constant stream of 'instant' takes, tedious micro-debates and heavy-going commentary (mainly from the right but increasingly from from the hard left).
That said, I still have that occasional sense of a fear of missing out on reading the takes from people whose opinions I value... but ultimately, the net effect of Twitter/X for me was negative in terms of how it affected my mood, so in the end I concluded it just had to go.
There are plenty of better places to get quality commentary and analysis. I now focus on them although the disadvantage is not having everything in one place.
“So my choice is not Twitter as I knew it or not, but Twitter as it is now”
That sums it up – all of it – for people struggling with what to do. And I get that it can be painful to move away. I had my followers (fewer than you, but still north of 7k), which was an interesting mix of friends, geeks, creators, PR folks and celebs. The site felt like it cast a wider net than any other social network and was to some extent an equaliser.
I miss it. Heck, I almost mourned it. I hated leaving behind that group when Musk’s destruction finally made it so I couldn’t justify spending any time on the site more than I had to. And that just meant for work purposes – certainly not for posts from my own account. The thing is, at the time I’d already noticed things were dwindling. And when I did a sanity check this month, a year after I ‘left’, scrolling through my ‘filter’ list (my favourites, essentially) over a couple of days, I found many of the people on there had also gone.
Rebuilding isn’t easy. Honestly, I’m not sure it’s even possible. The communities are fragmented now, and any audience people built on Twitter probably arrived in weird and random ways. But the good thing is that there are alternatives. I’m happily nestled with a group of geek, science folks and newsy types on Mastodon. Bluesky had loads of writers and comics folks and has just had a huge influx of Brits from various quarters. Threads is kind of a catch-all for the rest. Between them, they’re not yet for me what Twitter once was – but they’re a whole lot better than what it became by the time I quit.
Thanks for this. I’m wrestling with it too (I suspect thousands of us are). I’m only a lurker these days but I used to have a decent-sized account that I deleted years ago, and I still miss the connections and demi-friends I had through that account. Online social spaces are a real thing!
I really recognise that feeling of ‘can I be arsed?’, in my case to learn a whole new platform. I just can’t be bothered. I’m going to stick around until the presidential election (because Twitter is still the only place to follow news IMO). But the incitement to racial violence, which is was I’m beginning to see more of (mercifully mostly in QTs from people like Sunder Katwala) is horrifying and I don’t know that I can justify sticking around for much longer. I will always miss 2010 Twitter though. That was fucking ace.
I was being quite blasé and all 'it's just online' about Twitters downturn until quite recently when I saw a few incidents of online conspiracies threatening real life violence in communities I care about and against people I care about. I had to rethink sharpish.
But it is a case of rethinking. 2010 Twitter was ace. And for a long time, the balance of my feed tipped in this direction. And I did get a lot of lovely things out of it. But that does seem to be gone.
Dude - and you really are being a dude here - React to the points made or not. But not agreeing with my thought process and explantion of my thought processes is not the same as accusing me of not thinking about it.
Hard thinking is not just thinking that you agree with.
I don’t know what a “dude” is. I’m in my early seventies and no doubt I ought to find out.
Like you I depend in part on writing for an income, but I am much less important - I am the lead opinion writer for a trade publication. What I know from thirty years of doing that is that nobody has to read an opinion column. People have to read the news; the rest is optional. People will read opinion stuff if it’s funny and/or if it makes them feel better about life.
I suspect that your income may drop if you drop X because it’s a platform for you. You don’t say that; you talk about your inner child and your outer cat lady. This isn’t hard thinking. Sorry. Feel free to block me.
You're right. No one has to read an opinion piece - or a newsletter. No one also has to read the news. In fact millions don't.
I don't know what trade you write about nor do I make a judgement about our relative importance. My trade is talking about politics. Politics is about people and what motivates them. I talk here about what motivates me. What I think is the underexplored aspect in the dozens of pieces I have read about as Twitter disintegrates. I write about personal things a lot. The personal is, after all, political. I will continue to do so. Feel free to unsubscribe. I don't block anyone who isn't out and out absuive rather than just being a bit annoying.
I don't talk about my income dropping on X because other than a (diminishing) few ticket sales, I don't think I have ever made a bean off of it. But nice attempt.
Hello Emma, and thanks for the name check and for the lovely words. I really enjoyed reading this, and you did remind me of why I went on Twitter in the first place. As you pointed out I left some time ago, facebook too etc. and apart from times when people assume I know something has happened to them because they posted, so thought I would've seen it (happened with a friend who's mum had died and I didn't know because I hadn't seen her for over a month) - apart from those times, I really, really don't regret it. I became more focused. I also removed all notifications (including the red number on messaging apps so when I looked at my phone I didn't know how many emails were waiting) and that made me much more present with friends and family. But then I'm not a writer who needs to share what they're doing, so I don't lose out because of that. I'm not recommending people come off, that's totally up to them. And for those who wish to stay I just wish there was a better replacement, or a better owner. I do accept you and I don't communicate like we used to in that casual way, so let's go old school and have a drink when either of us is in the same city. More power to your elbow. Lots of love, Paul
Good piece as ever. You sum up the pros and cons really well. There is that additional challenge that I recognise exists for journalists and writers such as yourself, namely, that you have amassed a strong following that I fully understand is something you do not want to just dispense with. We average folk don't have that issue to content with, so it changes the calculation somewhat.
I did a lot of overthinking about leaving or staying. I logged off for a week while I was abroad on holiday - it happened to coincide with the week of the riots. On returning, I logged back on for a few hours, and just thought, 'no let's come off for good'. Account deleted. I was glued to the thing for years and especially so during the Tory years and then the General Election.
I am enjoying avoiding the constant stream of 'instant' takes, tedious micro-debates and heavy-going commentary (mainly from the right but increasingly from from the hard left).
That said, I still have that occasional sense of a fear of missing out on reading the takes from people whose opinions I value... but ultimately, the net effect of Twitter/X for me was negative in terms of how it affected my mood, so in the end I concluded it just had to go.
There are plenty of better places to get quality commentary and analysis. I now focus on them although the disadvantage is not having everything in one place.
“So my choice is not Twitter as I knew it or not, but Twitter as it is now”
That sums it up – all of it – for people struggling with what to do. And I get that it can be painful to move away. I had my followers (fewer than you, but still north of 7k), which was an interesting mix of friends, geeks, creators, PR folks and celebs. The site felt like it cast a wider net than any other social network and was to some extent an equaliser.
I miss it. Heck, I almost mourned it. I hated leaving behind that group when Musk’s destruction finally made it so I couldn’t justify spending any time on the site more than I had to. And that just meant for work purposes – certainly not for posts from my own account. The thing is, at the time I’d already noticed things were dwindling. And when I did a sanity check this month, a year after I ‘left’, scrolling through my ‘filter’ list (my favourites, essentially) over a couple of days, I found many of the people on there had also gone.
Rebuilding isn’t easy. Honestly, I’m not sure it’s even possible. The communities are fragmented now, and any audience people built on Twitter probably arrived in weird and random ways. But the good thing is that there are alternatives. I’m happily nestled with a group of geek, science folks and newsy types on Mastodon. Bluesky had loads of writers and comics folks and has just had a huge influx of Brits from various quarters. Threads is kind of a catch-all for the rest. Between them, they’re not yet for me what Twitter once was – but they’re a whole lot better than what it became by the time I quit.
Thanks for this. I’m wrestling with it too (I suspect thousands of us are). I’m only a lurker these days but I used to have a decent-sized account that I deleted years ago, and I still miss the connections and demi-friends I had through that account. Online social spaces are a real thing!
I really recognise that feeling of ‘can I be arsed?’, in my case to learn a whole new platform. I just can’t be bothered. I’m going to stick around until the presidential election (because Twitter is still the only place to follow news IMO). But the incitement to racial violence, which is was I’m beginning to see more of (mercifully mostly in QTs from people like Sunder Katwala) is horrifying and I don’t know that I can justify sticking around for much longer. I will always miss 2010 Twitter though. That was fucking ace.
I was being quite blasé and all 'it's just online' about Twitters downturn until quite recently when I saw a few incidents of online conspiracies threatening real life violence in communities I care about and against people I care about. I had to rethink sharpish.
But it is a case of rethinking. 2010 Twitter was ace. And for a long time, the balance of my feed tipped in this direction. And I did get a lot of lovely things out of it. But that does seem to be gone.
Just leave X. It’s not hard. Just think about how much damage you are doing to yourself and the causes that you hold dear by staying there.
Did you read the post at all?
Yes. Unfortunately. Most of your stuff is worth reading, but there is no “hard thinking” in that post.
Dude - and you really are being a dude here - React to the points made or not. But not agreeing with my thought process and explantion of my thought processes is not the same as accusing me of not thinking about it.
Hard thinking is not just thinking that you agree with.
I don’t know what a “dude” is. I’m in my early seventies and no doubt I ought to find out.
Like you I depend in part on writing for an income, but I am much less important - I am the lead opinion writer for a trade publication. What I know from thirty years of doing that is that nobody has to read an opinion column. People have to read the news; the rest is optional. People will read opinion stuff if it’s funny and/or if it makes them feel better about life.
I suspect that your income may drop if you drop X because it’s a platform for you. You don’t say that; you talk about your inner child and your outer cat lady. This isn’t hard thinking. Sorry. Feel free to block me.
You're right. No one has to read an opinion piece - or a newsletter. No one also has to read the news. In fact millions don't.
I don't know what trade you write about nor do I make a judgement about our relative importance. My trade is talking about politics. Politics is about people and what motivates them. I talk here about what motivates me. What I think is the underexplored aspect in the dozens of pieces I have read about as Twitter disintegrates. I write about personal things a lot. The personal is, after all, political. I will continue to do so. Feel free to unsubscribe. I don't block anyone who isn't out and out absuive rather than just being a bit annoying.
I don't talk about my income dropping on X because other than a (diminishing) few ticket sales, I don't think I have ever made a bean off of it. But nice attempt.
Leave now. The tide is turning against Musk. Don't hang around. Tell your followers where you're going then leave.