A few years ago, I left Facebook. It was a fairly easy decision, based on a combination of the dubious morals of Mark Zuckerberg, its complicity in the election of Donald Trump, its dealings with Cambridge Analytica, the effect it had on my mood, and, not least, the enormous time cost of endless scrolling.

In the years that followed, I never once missed Facebook. In fact, as time passed it became obvious that I made the right choice (if you need a list of reasons other than the obvious fake news, human rights abuses, hate speech, blatant attacks on democracy and anti-vaccination propaganda as the world faces its biggest pandemic in 100 years, look it up—there’s even a Wikipedia page). I subsequently quit Instagram and, eventually, WhatsApp. 

Now, I’m reconsidering my relationship with a certain blue, twittering fowl. Not so much for political reasons, though let’s be honest: Twitter, for all its benefits, is also a cesspool of bigoted idiots shouting at each other from impenetrable echo-chambers and carries its own responsibility for an increasingly polarised world. 

Twitter, like Facebook, is a massive time sink. I don’t know about you, but the first thing I do when I sit down with my coffee in the morning is to open safari and check Twitter. (I open Safari to check Twitter, because I deleted the app in order to curb my habit. As a result, I still have the habit, but with extra steps). Next to me, the scrolling idiot, sits my toddler son and drinks his milk. I’m obviously not making the right priority.

Perhaps prioritising Twitter over my family in idle moments would be excusable if it made me a better person, or if it made me happier and thus nicer to be around. But it really doesn’t. There’s perhaps a tiny argument to be made that Twitter makes me a better designer—I follow a healthy bunch of industry peers who regularly inspire me with their content—but that hardly seems worth it. 

A lot of the time, despite having an extremely curated feed and regularly culling content I don’t want, I close Twitter feeling a little bit stressed, envious, frustrated, or sad. Stressed that COVID isn’t going away and that anti-vaxxers are a thing. Envious that so-and-so did something amazing and I didn’t. Frustrated at the erosion of objective truth. Sad that the world sucks for so many people. 

Despite all this I’m hesitant to delete my account. Over the years, I’ve made a bunch of connections on Twitter. I want to be able to reach out to people, and I want people to be able to reach out to me. As a freelancer I want a platform to promote myself. What I don’t want is an unhealthy relationship with social media.

So here’s what I’ll do. I’ll unfollow everyone, in the hope that my feed will turn into an unappealing stream of adverts I won’t have the urge to check (I already did this on LinkedIn with great success). I’ll open my DMs and turn email notifications on, so I don’t have to log in to check for messages either. And I’ll only post when I actually have something to share, like this blog you're reading now.

Sorry, Twitter. It’s not me, it’s you.