Six Weeks Off Twitter
It’s been roughly six weeks since I’ve stopped using Twitter on a daily basis. I initially took a break to stay away from some anxiety inducing news, and I was initially going to return to daily use once that passed. But after hearing others on Micro.blog post about their experience closing their Twitter account, I decided to see how long I can go staying off Twitter myself.
I wouldn’t say that I am a big Twitter user. I don’t have a Twitter audience (I think my follower count is in the single digits), I hardly ever tweet or reply, and although I have a few friends and family on there, I have other means of communicating with them that I tend to use more often. The only thing I would miss are the occasional interesting or amusing tweets from those that I follow, something that is not guaranteed in any particular reading session.
In those six weeks, I notice my reading patterns have change. I’m reading a lot more books and blog posts now. I found that having something to read during the time you’re usually browsing Twitter helps a great deal, so there’s always some long form written piece that I can turn to when I’ve caught up with everything else. And although I wouldn’t say my anxiety has gone, I do think that it’s lower than it was. It’s calming to know that there are no shocking/depressing items that can jump out of me during a particular reading session. I think that mechanic has a lot to do with the addictiveness of Twitter and it’s ilk.
I’m not quite at the point where I will completely close my Twitter account, and there are some users that I may move over to Feedbin (I haven’t done that yet, so I’m not sure how interested in them I really am). But, all in all, I think this break from daily use of Twitter has been good for me, and I found myself having no real urge to going back.

Well done! I’ve dipped my feet back into Twitter in the last week or two, by adding about five different users to my feed reader. I’m not actually sure how I feel about that (I think I need to rejig my folders so prolific Twitterers aren’t in the same folders as blogs, and see how that goes), but overall I feel better for stepping back.

@jayeless Thank you. Yeah, I think adding a few, carefully chosen Twitter users to my feed reader would be the best approach for me going forward as well.