What Twitter does to your mind, body & soul.
May 19, 2023 7:06 AM Subscribe
"The melding of your thoughts with Twitter scrolling causes you to imagine a flow of Tweets overlayed over physical reality. You will read an opinion in 280 characters or less written by someone you do not know and you will compute this as something that someone out there believes. As you later walk through your grocery store buying bread, you’ll imagine the strangers you see are directly reflective of the Twitter threads you’ve been reading. Although one of these worlds is human, and one of them is a fragmented for-profit manipulation, we melt them together as equally reflective of reality, and in doing so we adapt to both equally." Those aren't "Tweets", Those Are Your Thoughts
I've commented something similar to this here before, but I can't find it to link:
This is the opinion of someone who writes opinion essays on substack. That's fine, but it does mean that they're in the business of having takes, and if you read their description of how they use Twitter, it seems like they're having takes on Twitter too. If you're trying to build a social media presence as someone with takes, or even just following a bunch of other people that have takes, you're going to have a different experience than someone ... who is there for different reasons.
A lot of these articles seem to assume that their experience of Twitter is universal, though.
This isn't how I use Twitter, and my timeline isn't anything like this. I'm mostly on fandom twitter, and my timeline is mostly writers, artists, and fans posting about their work or about the latest thing that they're into. Many of us are reluctant to leave Twitter entirely because it isn't so easy to rebuild social networks, and no one agrees on what the replacement should be. You're not just cutting off your intake of takes.
Sure, the incentives affect fandom too. There are definitely large fandom accounts that have gained a lot of their followers by having fandom takes. Negativity and drama still gets engagement. But on fandom Twitter, there is just more to be there for that people inside of the take machine seem to be missing. It's like they can't imagine social media that's not talking about politics or neighborly casserole etiquette or whatever.
All this is to say, while I think that we definitely need to talk about how site design and algorithms affect the way people interact with social media, I think these kinds of essays totally overlook the fact that the individual writing them has made choices about how to engage, too.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:49 AM on May 19, 2023 [27 favorites]
This is the opinion of someone who writes opinion essays on substack. That's fine, but it does mean that they're in the business of having takes, and if you read their description of how they use Twitter, it seems like they're having takes on Twitter too. If you're trying to build a social media presence as someone with takes, or even just following a bunch of other people that have takes, you're going to have a different experience than someone ... who is there for different reasons.
A lot of these articles seem to assume that their experience of Twitter is universal, though.
This isn't how I use Twitter, and my timeline isn't anything like this. I'm mostly on fandom twitter, and my timeline is mostly writers, artists, and fans posting about their work or about the latest thing that they're into. Many of us are reluctant to leave Twitter entirely because it isn't so easy to rebuild social networks, and no one agrees on what the replacement should be. You're not just cutting off your intake of takes.
Sure, the incentives affect fandom too. There are definitely large fandom accounts that have gained a lot of their followers by having fandom takes. Negativity and drama still gets engagement. But on fandom Twitter, there is just more to be there for that people inside of the take machine seem to be missing. It's like they can't imagine social media that's not talking about politics or neighborly casserole etiquette or whatever.
All this is to say, while I think that we definitely need to talk about how site design and algorithms affect the way people interact with social media, I think these kinds of essays totally overlook the fact that the individual writing them has made choices about how to engage, too.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:49 AM on May 19, 2023 [27 favorites]
Yeah, my immediate reaction to the article was "this person needs to pare down their Following list to maybe 300 accounts they care what they say, and then change their timeline to exclude the algorithm, and then they'd enjoy their experience".
We all make choices about how to use these things, and the choices you make can really really give you a different and probably singular experience.
posted by hippybear at 8:27 AM on May 19, 2023 [8 favorites]
We all make choices about how to use these things, and the choices you make can really really give you a different and probably singular experience.
posted by hippybear at 8:27 AM on May 19, 2023 [8 favorites]
I agree with what's been said above (which I interpret basically as "take-havers gonna have takes"); I have a locked Twitter and I always follow exactly 69 accounts and it's great! It's mostly friends, either IRL or online (many from Metafilter!), a few accounts I think are funny, and maybe a couple of things to stay informed about local happenings. I get some stuff that's upsetting but I'm trans, the world is upsetting right now. There are certainly problems with Twitter but I found this overwrought. Saying stuff like "You are a cyborg" and "There is already a microchip hacking your brain" just feels like a lot to me, I think the person who wrote this might be projecting quite a bit.
posted by an octopus IRL at 8:42 AM on May 19, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by an octopus IRL at 8:42 AM on May 19, 2023 [2 favorites]
It’s even worse than that though, because when you read anything silently, it’s your voice inside your head.
And as a result, I’ve often thought that social media gives everyone who reads text an essential part of the experience of schizophrenia, and in that very limited sense — as well as others, perhaps — is driving us all insane.
Of course reading anything does that, and in fact when I learned to read kind of spontaneously very late (3rd grade), I thought I was hearing voices of people who weren’t there, but I don’t think I was sophisticated enough at the time to be very worried about it.
posted by jamjam at 9:08 AM on May 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
And as a result, I’ve often thought that social media gives everyone who reads text an essential part of the experience of schizophrenia, and in that very limited sense — as well as others, perhaps — is driving us all insane.
Of course reading anything does that, and in fact when I learned to read kind of spontaneously very late (3rd grade), I thought I was hearing voices of people who weren’t there, but I don’t think I was sophisticated enough at the time to be very worried about it.
posted by jamjam at 9:08 AM on May 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
I had a one-and-done block policy on Twitter, so with the governance changes last year I terminated my account with extreme prejudice.
This is for the better since the Twitter scroll was so highly addicting (steady drip of dopamine)
My Internet diet steadily escalated the first 30 years, time to dial it back…
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:16 AM on May 19, 2023 [2 favorites]
This is for the better since the Twitter scroll was so highly addicting (steady drip of dopamine)
My Internet diet steadily escalated the first 30 years, time to dial it back…
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:16 AM on May 19, 2023 [2 favorites]
Very happy to be done with it. Miss a few people, do not miss the culture and the incentives to engage.
posted by Artw at 9:22 AM on May 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 9:22 AM on May 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
I thought this part was well-observed: You will make a sandwich, you will drop it on the floor, and this will be sad but also funny, so you will quickly subjugate this experience to the 280 character or less format in order to perform it for Twitter. When I was on Twitter, I often found myself formulating tweets in my head. I'm a writer, so I think about how to word things all the time anyway, but it was really stark when I stopped using Twitter how much more of my own experience I was just experiencing and not trying to edit into something funny.
posted by joannemerriam at 9:44 AM on May 19, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by joannemerriam at 9:44 AM on May 19, 2023 [9 favorites]
There's a trope in genre fiction where when you get some superpower, you have some kind of commensurate drawback. For example, you might get super speed but then everything in the world looks like it's moving in slow motion to you so you're constantly bored and impatient. Or maybe you get super strength but then you can no longer give hugs for fear of crushing people. When it comes to telepathy, a common trope is that you can't control it enough to shut out other people's mind-voices and then you're driven insane. Twitter feels like it's basically some version of telepathy.
posted by mhum at 10:26 AM on May 19, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by mhum at 10:26 AM on May 19, 2023 [5 favorites]
Hah.
Recently reread The Tommyknockers and it’s basically that form of telepathy. Everyone gets turned into weird twitchy goblins by it and we don’t even get the gadget building.
posted by Artw at 10:43 AM on May 19, 2023
Recently reread The Tommyknockers and it’s basically that form of telepathy. Everyone gets turned into weird twitchy goblins by it and we don’t even get the gadget building.
posted by Artw at 10:43 AM on May 19, 2023
A lot of these articles seem to assume that their experience of Twitter is universal, though.
Gosh yes. It's so embarrassing to see people who read 200 tweets today from the 2000 people they follow and then talk as if they have any idea how hundreds of millions of people are using Twitter.
posted by straight at 10:45 AM on May 19, 2023 [3 favorites]
Gosh yes. It's so embarrassing to see people who read 200 tweets today from the 2000 people they follow and then talk as if they have any idea how hundreds of millions of people are using Twitter.
posted by straight at 10:45 AM on May 19, 2023 [3 favorites]
I have to admit I don't understand the "their experience of Twitter is universal" reaction, especially to the point of finding it embarrassing. It's an article written from the point of view of the writer, using their own experiences with the platform. Is it the second person used in the article that's causing the "actually, not all twitter users" reactions?
posted by simmering octagon at 11:27 AM on May 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by simmering octagon at 11:27 AM on May 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
For me the second person was definitely part of it; it felt super weird to have him tell me, a person he has never met, about my own experiences.
posted by an octopus IRL at 11:35 AM on May 19, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by an octopus IRL at 11:35 AM on May 19, 2023 [4 favorites]
Yeah that second-person thing very much makes it sound like A Person Who Just Saw Fight Club for the first time.
I have no dog in the Twitter fight at all, my exposure to it basically comes in the form of exactly what the author asks us to do: a friend texts me with a comment and a link, and the link is often to Twitter (often a tweet that contains in itself a link, so that Twitter is just kind of a waystation between my message app and some other website). This is not meant to be smug. I had my time getting irrationally, explosively, mental-health-erodingly angry at people for being wrong online during the Long Ago Days of blogs; my non-twittering isn't superiority it's just exhaustion.
But I do always kind of rankle when people are like, "well if you are bored maybe you need to just be bored until you are unhappy enough to become a better person that has a better not-boring life." My friend, some of us have to work for a living, and have you seen jobs? They're fucking boring.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:06 PM on May 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have no dog in the Twitter fight at all, my exposure to it basically comes in the form of exactly what the author asks us to do: a friend texts me with a comment and a link, and the link is often to Twitter (often a tweet that contains in itself a link, so that Twitter is just kind of a waystation between my message app and some other website). This is not meant to be smug. I had my time getting irrationally, explosively, mental-health-erodingly angry at people for being wrong online during the Long Ago Days of blogs; my non-twittering isn't superiority it's just exhaustion.
But I do always kind of rankle when people are like, "well if you are bored maybe you need to just be bored until you are unhappy enough to become a better person that has a better not-boring life." My friend, some of us have to work for a living, and have you seen jobs? They're fucking boring.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:06 PM on May 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
Is it the second person used in the article that's causing the "actually, not all twitter users" reactions?
From my experience people get really fucking twitchy if you suggest they stop using Twitter, though to be fair I’m generally less calling people junkies and more pointing out they are helping the business model of a site now dedicated to supporting fascism.
it’s ironic that journalists that are most hopelessly addicted to it, since the current MAGA iteration of fascism fucking hates any and all journalism.
posted by Artw at 12:11 PM on May 19, 2023 [2 favorites]
From my experience people get really fucking twitchy if you suggest they stop using Twitter, though to be fair I’m generally less calling people junkies and more pointing out they are helping the business model of a site now dedicated to supporting fascism.
it’s ironic that journalists that are most hopelessly addicted to it, since the current MAGA iteration of fascism fucking hates any and all journalism.
posted by Artw at 12:11 PM on May 19, 2023 [2 favorites]
I did recently demote twitter to a lesser place in the weird hierarchy of windows and tabs I keep to manage my online life, and put mastodon there in its place. It is a small change, but it's significant. My mastodon following list is slowly growing to be not dead most of the time, and that's nice.
posted by hippybear at 12:16 PM on May 19, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 12:16 PM on May 19, 2023 [2 favorites]
From my experience people get really fucking twitchy if you suggest they stop using Twitter, though to be fair I’m generally less calling people junkies and more pointing out they are helping the business model of a site now dedicated to supporting fascism.
From my experience, people get really fucking twitchy when others attribute motives and experiences to them that aren't accurate.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 4:16 PM on May 19, 2023 [3 favorites]
From my experience, people get really fucking twitchy when others attribute motives and experiences to them that aren't accurate.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 4:16 PM on May 19, 2023 [3 favorites]
Just generally people get twitchy when you try to exert control over their behavior.
posted by hippybear at 4:18 PM on May 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 4:18 PM on May 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
This isn't how I use Twitter, and my timeline isn't anything like this.
Same. I've been an active Twitter user since the Odeo days and have continually gardened my experience. "Gardening" means adding and cutting, responding to changing feeds and circumstances, plus my own shifting interests. It has been a net positive overall.
I know slamming Twitter (and social media in general; this post's article targets more than just one platform, and also seems to be aimed at mobile devices) is a staple theme on the blue. And I'm aware of the structural issues as well as the media studies critiques. But pieces like this mistake the personal for the universal and are just too narrowly focused to be very useful or illuminating.
posted by doctornemo at 5:40 PM on May 19, 2023
Same. I've been an active Twitter user since the Odeo days and have continually gardened my experience. "Gardening" means adding and cutting, responding to changing feeds and circumstances, plus my own shifting interests. It has been a net positive overall.
I know slamming Twitter (and social media in general; this post's article targets more than just one platform, and also seems to be aimed at mobile devices) is a staple theme on the blue. And I'm aware of the structural issues as well as the media studies critiques. But pieces like this mistake the personal for the universal and are just too narrowly focused to be very useful or illuminating.
posted by doctornemo at 5:40 PM on May 19, 2023
I did recently demote twitter to a lesser place in the weird hierarchy of windows and tabs I keep to manage my online life, and put mastodon there in its place.
That's a nice snapshot, hippybear.
I've been trying Mastodon again, for the nth time, and am actually having a better experience. Finally landing on a server that works for me helps, as does the assistance of a number of friends (I don't know how many are MeFites).
But I still use Twitter, alongside LinkedIn, Facebook, my blog, and a swarm of RSS feeds. Each has different affordances. Twitter still provides a useful set of experiences and information, plus professional and personal connections.
That could change, and probably will.
posted by doctornemo at 5:42 PM on May 19, 2023
That's a nice snapshot, hippybear.
I've been trying Mastodon again, for the nth time, and am actually having a better experience. Finally landing on a server that works for me helps, as does the assistance of a number of friends (I don't know how many are MeFites).
But I still use Twitter, alongside LinkedIn, Facebook, my blog, and a swarm of RSS feeds. Each has different affordances. Twitter still provides a useful set of experiences and information, plus professional and personal connections.
That could change, and probably will.
posted by doctornemo at 5:42 PM on May 19, 2023
For the record, the author is the brilliant and passionate video essayist CJ The X.
As noted by COLORMIND., when you link CJ The X to people who aren't on that wavelength, they boo and throw stuff at you.
posted by ob1quixote at 6:46 PM on May 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
As noted by COLORMIND., when you link CJ The X to people who aren't on that wavelength, they boo and throw stuff at you.
posted by ob1quixote at 6:46 PM on May 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
Mod note: One deleted. Don't insult / attack other members. (Also, maybe think about not behaving in a fascistic way toward non-fascists to pound home your disapproval of fascism?)
posted by taz (staff) at 10:16 PM on May 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by taz (staff) at 10:16 PM on May 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
Something about the rhythm of this essay annoyed me by the end. The article kept making its points and appearing to come to a conclusion at which point I felt like the reader was expected to throw the phone in the trash and go live life, and then another paragraph would start.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 8:10 AM on May 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 8:10 AM on May 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have to admit I don't understand the "their experience of Twitter is universal" reaction, especially to the point of finding it embarrassing. It's an article written from the point of view of the writer, using their own experiences with the platform. Is it the second person used in the article that's causing the "actually, not all twitter users" reactions?
I admit I don't understand this reading, although if it were intended to be an internal dialogue, a self-critical confessional, it would make the piece more interesting IMHO. So there's that.
But the author uses the first person singular, the first person plural, and the second person, throughout the piece. The natural reading is that when they use the second person, they are in fact intending to talk to and asserting something about their reader. Especially given the amount of pop neuroscience and sociology they are also tossing out. The "you" sections are meant to be of general relevance.
posted by mark k at 8:43 AM on May 20, 2023
I admit I don't understand this reading, although if it were intended to be an internal dialogue, a self-critical confessional, it would make the piece more interesting IMHO. So there's that.
But the author uses the first person singular, the first person plural, and the second person, throughout the piece. The natural reading is that when they use the second person, they are in fact intending to talk to and asserting something about their reader. Especially given the amount of pop neuroscience and sociology they are also tossing out. The "you" sections are meant to be of general relevance.
posted by mark k at 8:43 AM on May 20, 2023
This reads like an awful lot of articles making generalized statements about what Twitter (or Instagram or Youtube or TikTok) is or what Twitter is doing to us or how we use Twitter. Usually they don't indicate that they're talking about their own tiny corner of Twitter and mostly give the impression they don't even realize that they're only aware of a tiny corner of Twitter.
Nobody can really wrap their heads around what hundreds of millions of people are doing with social media, but we can at least keep in mind that we're only aware of a tiny, tiny fraction of what people are doing and all the different ways they are using these sites.
posted by straight at 5:19 PM on May 20, 2023 [4 favorites]
Nobody can really wrap their heads around what hundreds of millions of people are doing with social media, but we can at least keep in mind that we're only aware of a tiny, tiny fraction of what people are doing and all the different ways they are using these sites.
posted by straight at 5:19 PM on May 20, 2023 [4 favorites]
I'm in New Zealand so I just woke up and missed the start of this thread, but wenestvedt, Duolingo absolutely does not behave that way for me! I mean, it definitely wants me to use the paid plan, and it will occasionally offer hearts for ads, but the primary mechanisms for getting hearts are a) wait 4 hours or b) do a practice set where it doesn't care how many mistakes you make, get to the end of the set and you get a heart. I'm learning Swedish which has some exciting issues around plurals and indefinite articles that are not clear in English (is I am eating the fish supposed to translate as jag äter fisken or jag äter fiskarna? Does skärp take an en or ett article? Only way to know is to try) and I quite like it because yes, you lose a heart for screwing up, but in real life... the only way to know is to try.
posted by ngaiotonga at 1:46 PM on May 21, 2023
posted by ngaiotonga at 1:46 PM on May 21, 2023
(I know this is a derail, I'm so sorry, but to continue the Duolingo conversation - if you convert your account to a teacher/classroom account, you can set it so you don't get the "five hearts and you're done, please watch this ad" thing. It's free to do the conversion and not terribly difficult. I'm the only person in my household doing Duolingo so I don't have personal experience with this next bit, but I believe you can add other users as "students" in your classroom account and they won't have hearts either. /derail)
posted by darchildre at 11:21 AM on May 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by darchildre at 11:21 AM on May 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
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God, yes. This is exactly why I stayed on Twitter as long as I did. And, having deleted my account, I still find other funny & smart things to read (helllllllo, MeFi!) without the Nazism and constant anger/irritation.
FTFA again: What is much more concerning is that the same addictive optimization techniques are applied to your emotional and intellectual life
I hate gamification combined with the profit motive!
My wife and I and one of our kids are on pretty long DuoLingo streaks. DuoLingo lets you make five mistakes before kicking you off for the day (though you can earn "hearts" by watching ads). And the app doesn't explain things before penalizing you for making mistakes, it simply demonstrates it once or twice--so I never know what's important and often miss new words/grammar.
We all agree that we aren't going to pay for the monthly plan -- mostly because they want it all up front! -- and that we would all be practicing more if the do-or-die metric didn't exist. If I could find an app for foreign language practice that is as good, without the "five strikes and you're out" mechanism, I would happily go there and spend much more time per day on it because I want to learn French, and not because I love high-stakes games.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:23 AM on May 19, 2023 [12 favorites]