Artyom Kazak/Sketches/21-06-01: Two months without Twitter

21-06-01: Two months without Twitter

Two months ago, I logged out of @theorangealt. I kept using the main account — @availablegreen — but rarely.

Why?

I don't remember why exactly I decided to spend two months without Twitter, but I do remember that on the same day I decided to stop thinking with words and actually did so for about a week. It was pretty cool. Trusting myself not to need the words.

I actually have a theory now: I associate myself with the words I think in my head, but perhaps the words actually belong not to me, but to an.. image of the society inside my head. Mentally iterating between different versions of "what could somebody say" till I stumble upon something I like. See also:

currently convinced that ~every thought I hear spontaneously in my head with *words* is a “social” thought/belief
— @uncatherio, Apr 23, 2021

Anyway.

The Twitter experience

Now that I can use Twitter again, I am tempted to go there all the time. I have the tab open. I switch to it every now and then. When I don't have the tab open, I feel like my life would be nicer if I had it open.

This is actually a common thing. I have the same with watching chess streams, or standing in a bathtub. I think Twitter exposes a low-key worry that I always have, and this worry is probably "I should be doing something else right now". So I have to tune out of it, all the time.

Well, there are three things. Watching chess streams, or standing in a bathtub, or the typewriter simulator. If I feel bad, very very occasionally I open the typewriter simulator and start typing — and then I feel like I'm fully alone with myself. This is cool. Usually I don't feel like that.

While Twitter is great for tuning out, eventually I get tired. I open Twitter, close it, open it, close it, and after a while I feel like Twitter is pulling me. Being pulled isn't nice.

So, this was the best thing about those two months — not feeling pulled.

Is Twitter good?

Objectively, Twitter isn't good, and by "good" I mean something like "sparks joy". My own terminology is "I am not getting things out of it". I think I got a bunch of therapy stuff done and it was good, but now that therapy stuff is over, I am not getting things out of it anymore.

Some background: three months ago I noticed that I actually feel pretty bad when I am not getting things out of things: see 21-03-13: I'm not getting anything out of it. Many things in my life seem to be in this category.

Re/ Twitter specifically:

  • I don't get much out of reading Twitter. I follow people so that I would see their takes and life updates sometimes and reply to them and talk to them, but then I never actually reply to life updates. So reading Twitter feels like going on Tinder and always swiping left, left, left, left.
  • I do reply to takes, but then it also doesn't lead anywhere.
  • Actually, even when I do say something — I don't know how it affects people. If it does, usually I don't see it. So replying doesn't feel like "I'm getting something out of it", it feels more like being an annoying person who goes around and comments on people's things.
  • And even if I write posts and announce them on Twitter, I don't see any effect from that, either.

This last point is why I switched to mostly writing "sketches" posts instead of normal posts. Saying out loud what I have been noticing in background feels inherently worthwhile. Writing a post about simulacra levels or whatever, on the other hand, doesn't feel inherently worthwhile.

What now?

Since too many things in my life are in the "not getting anything out of it" category, I have started changing it. With a Trello board and everything:

So I will remain on Twitter too and either try to get something useful out of it, or at least notice when I already get useful things out of it. If it doesn't work, I can always quit.