[Technology] Has anybody come off of Twitter / X? How easy did you find it?

[Beanstalk]

Trying to wean myself off.

Was a very early adopter of Twitter and it’s become a very important part of my job so over the years it’s become a pretty big part of my routine. It’s been noticeable that since Musk has taken over it appears as if there has been around a 20% drop off in active people using the platform.

More than directly transitioning to bluesky or threads, I’ve found that setting up shortcut automations to collate news from mainstream sources I trust to replace using Twitter as a news source has been really useful and removing the app from my Home Screen is good for not absent mindedly accessing it.

It’s the Albion and sports journalism where I struggle though. Would really appreciate the sports publications (Athletic, Guardian, Argus) and clubs starting to duplicate content across Twitter and BlueSky.

 

[The Rattler]

I came off Twitter when my account was hacked and seemingly taken over by a Bot! Despite multiple attempts to communicate with Twitter and explain this had happened, and that a load of posts made were nothing to do with me, I got precisely nowhere in my attempts to “get my account back”. I also then got blocked when I tried to open a new account.

In the long run, at least I now spend less time looking at crap on Twitter/X. Would probably be good for me if same happened on NSC!

I do wonder what crap my old account is spurting out though!

 

[Insel affe]

Never been on X, twitter, or Instagram, I was on Facebook under my real name, then Brexit came along, the hatred was too intense so I took some time off, re-joined and then Covid came along and more conspiracy and doom mongering. I was already suffering from high anxiety and felt suicidal. I left again.
I re joined Facebook about a year ago, but under a pseudo name, I have no work colleagues, family members, just mates from the music scene ive made since I was a teenager to keep in touch with about gigs and stuff I hardly post, I have noticed it seems to have more tik tok or whatever its called, anyway it I scroll straight past no matter how cute the kitten is or stupid the man about to fall off a cliff looks.

Obviously I post on here, probably too much to be honest, but I am trying to cut that down lately.

I do miss Myspace though, that was fun.

 

[Monkey Man]

I used to check Twitter all the time, with a business and a personal account. I posted a fair bit on the business account and had about 8k followers. A few years ago it was a quite useful way of getting conversations going, reminding the world we were there, and engaging with our clients. But to be honest, we noticed a big fall-off in people responding to us, and fewer interesting things for us to engage with. It was largely because people had switched to Instagram, or just reduced their social media use.

Since Musk has wrecked the site and encouraged/rewarded so much hate speech, I don't want any part of it. So we've stopped posting on the business account and just use Instagram. By comparison to Twitter at its best, it's better in many ways, worse in others.

For personal use I do miss a lot of the humour and football stuff I used to enjoy. I can find some of it on Instagram but not all of it, and certainly not as quickly.

But I'm not going back to Twitter, buying a Tesla, or joining the manned mission to Mars.

 

[HalfaSeatOn]

I use it for football and use ‘Recent searches’ as only interested in a dozen or so accounts. It’s useful for complaining to companies as usually get a response. General feed is full of lovable animals which pull in the gullible for Musk’s propaganda. I’ve had an account since Jan 2011 but can see me closing account in the not too distant future.

 

[Justice]

Has anyone ever been able to come of social media without announcing they are coming off social media?

I’ve seen some major flounces and then they come back

 

[BN9 BHA]

Has anyone ever been able to come of social media without announcing they are coming off social media?

 

[Badger]

Has anyone ever been able to come of social media without announcing they are coming off social media?

I can't believe you're still banging on about leaving Facebook.

 

[Dave the OAP]

Yep moved off, closed the account and moved to threads

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

I can't believe you're still banging on about leaving Facebook.

I'm leaving Facebook.

What's the best way to let you know

PM me Hun

 

[maltaseagull]

Glad I never joined it

I did sign up but have never posted a start or , I think , a response. Haven't looked at it for ages.

 

[Right Brain Ronnie]

Never joined, if a load are coming off there, I might consider joining.

 

[Sorrel]

I read Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook and even sometimes Threads. Don't interact much though - text can easily be misconstrued and it generally isn't worth it.

Each of them I find can be useful for different things:

• Twitter - news, politics, sport, entirely uncensored opinions, often untrue statements. I block thousands of people and consequently make the place more pleasant (for me).
• Bluesky - local nature observations, ecology information, nice photos
• Instagram - some local groups use it for news, I'm admin of one local group that does that, so occasionally post and interact in that guise
• Facebook - local events, local groups, old friends
• Threads - not really up to much, but occasionally nature-based things

It is important to limit time on all the above IMO. The endless doom-scroll means it won't do it for you.

 

[The Clamp]

Never heard of bluesky. Sounds quite nice.

 

[Zeberdi]

I came off it a few weeks back and it's given me hours back a week I reckon. I feel a lot less connected to Brighton news though, especially on game day. The live updates were so much more convenient on X/Twitter, but now I really don't miss it. Seeing Musk going slowly insane reminded me that I just didn't want someone like him having that connection into my world.

It took a while though because I wanted to delete all of my tweets, reposts and likes beforehand but the actual act of quitting it was quite freeing.

I don’t know whether this is something or not - I was talking to a work mate yesterday who does (EDIT: X ) himself, about my concerns that Musk will make Fb (EDIT: obviously meant ‘X’) into something akin to a pro-Trump ‘Truth Social’ now Trump’s won the Presidency - my work mate then said a load of people he knows that also do (Edit X) who have been highly critical of Trump and Musk in recent weeks, have suddenly lost 1,000s of their followers - as if their accounts have been partially shadow banned or their followers accounts blocked or something. I guess all people lose followers but my mate seemed to think it was during the campaign and at a high rate and to people that have been overly critical of Musk/Trump’s political ‘collaboration’.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

I don’t know whether this is something or not - I was talking to a work mate yesterday who does Fb himself, about my concerns that Musk will make Fb into something akin to a pro-Trump ‘Truth Social’ now Trump’s won the Presidency - my work mate then said a load of people he knows that also do Fb who have been highly critical of Trump and Musk in recent weeks, have suddenly lost 1,000s of their followers - as if their accounts have been partially shadow banned or their followers accounts blocked or something. I guess all people lose followers but my mate seemed to think it was during the campaign and at a high rate and to people that have been overly critical of Musk/Trump’s political ‘collaboration’.

Shadow banning is nothing new sadly, it happened pre musk.

I don't know why people trust Social media to the level they do, seems foolish

You can only really see what those in charge of FB/Twitter/google etc want you to see

 

[CheeseRolls]

Never heard of bluesky. Sounds quite nice.

I think it is. There is no obvious agenda to either politicise the platform or rampant commercialism. I avoid anything meta owned, so can't really give a valid comparison there, but compared to Mastadon, it is a more straightforward experience.

https://deck.blue/ brings back the Twitter Tweetdeck experience, which I know a number of other people really enjoyed. For now I would love to see more football content (possible) and more crypto (highly unlikely and I can live with that)

Numbers are creeping up, but the floodgates are yet to burst. Some of the more thoughtful journalists and commentators post/duel post there and I think it would be a good thing if it could gain wider adoption.

 

[billhems]

I went cold turkey after the US election, deleted it from my phone. NSC needs to step up with a daily supply of stimulating, erudite content to fill the gap, as its the only social media I'm allowing myself. 🫣

 

[Happy Exile]

I stopped using Twitter a few years ago, same time as I stopped using Facebook. Nothing to do with the quality (or lack of quality) of the posts as it wasn't so bad then but looking at it now I'm glad I left. I just did a bit of a thing of asking myself how I could use the time for something better for me. I didn't find it difficult particularly, and I think on reflection that's because there was a conscious redirection of the time I'd normally spend scrolling on my phone (like when on a train - I started listening to a lot more podcasts instead). I have to be on LinkedIn for work but very rarely ever post or comment on anything and other than here Reddit is probably the only social forum kind of place I still use. Reddit can be an echo chamber like most are, but in my experience has more diverse views than a lot of online spaces and you can control what you see without such algorithmically driven invasive posts getting in the way.

 

[heathgate]

A question to the hive mind of nsc

Since the ability to pay for blue ticks, promotion of those people and the use of ai/bots amplifying certain themes, I have posted on it less and less. I'm kind of thinking now is the time to drop off it altogether but am interested in whether others have and if so what alternatives people used.

It may be a FOMO but when it started the idea of being able to 'text' large groups of people seemed a good thing. It doesn't feel that way now

No, I am an adult and as such I have the ability to tailor my feed to include, or more importantly, exclude themes as my mood or sensibilities dictate.

It's a useful platform that I use primarily for news and sport, I don't use it for social networking etc.... this way I get what I want.

Simple really.