Why I'm Trying to Leave Twitter

Twitter is one of the funniest places on the internet. I originally thought allowing people to tweet their daily stream of conscious was one of the best things that mankind has ever invented, shoutout to @Jack. The average person is funny as hell. But, every good thing comes with something that completely sucks. It turns out, the average person also has some weird thoughts that probably will change the way you view them.

I've never been a social media hater. People who are friends with me know I have all social media cylinders firing from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. Sue me! Social media is like a real life game. You literally get points for the amount of people that like or agree with what you're saying. It's Elon-Musk-level simulation stuff. You can make a decent living if you play the game well enough.

It might be a little irresponsible of me, as a journalism student, to delete the app that reports news the second it happens. I thought about this fact for a second before I realized something. The amount of wrong and inaccurate reports I have read on Twitter far outweighs the reports that were accurate the first time. People tend to make the story about them, how they were personally affected, and what the news means for their life. I realized I really don't care about any of that. Twitter is a great resource if used properly, but putting faith in humans do the right thing hasn't gone swimmingly in the past (see: fake news).

This article by The Atlantic detailed a MIT study about how fake news spreads farther and deeper on Twitter than any other social media. I know what you're thinking: Facebook has to be the worst offender because I see kids from high school sharing videos on how Sandy Hook and 9/11 were hoaxes. Nope! Twitter outguns all other platforms when it comes to the spread of misinformation, baby! I guess this era of human beings simply aren't satisfied with the truth. It seems we need something so absurd and profound to talk and argue about that we will do whatever we can skew a story to fit our belief system. It's pretty sad, but I'm not that surprised.

Side note, please use something that fact checks the evidence for your arguments. It'll save you embarrassment for when you're arguing about how Morgan Freeman said jailing Hillary was the only way to put faith back in the government.

The other thing that really bothered me was having to hear why people hated certain things. Think I care that you hate Starbucks for closing for a few hours the other month for diversity training? Nope. Think I care that you are super displeased with the president for how he handled the separation of migrant families? Not even a little bit. I don't care much for social justice warriors on Twitter because I think they'd rather get retweets than make actual change. It's easy and it's lazy. I respect those who act on what they believe in, but most Twitter users are there to stir up controversy.

I guess I'm just tired of it all. I finally don't see any reason to be influenced by people who I don't know. I don't know how long this break from Twitter will last, but I'm already feeling less stressed out. Sometimes too much information does not do the body well.

My one plea is this: please, think about how many people you're going to influence the next time you hit that retweet button.



Also: Buy a damn shirt already https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DTCQ2JJ