Thread by @DinaPomeranz

.@ezraklein wonders on his show today whether there are any people out there for whom Twitter brings out the best in them.

Since for me, the answer is an emphatic "yes!", I thought I'd share some practices that might potentially contribute to that.

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Twitter is a very different experience depending on who we follow. I tend to follow people in the following categories:
- Interesting fellow researchers
- People who open new worlds to me
- People I observe online being kind and constructive
- Feeds that make me smile or think

I tend not to follow feeds that:
- Make me upset
- Seem to be out to provoke
- Advocate extreme viewpoints in an un-nuanced way
- Are mostly focused on daily news

I love engaging with people in dialogue online, and I personally don't shy away from discussions about points of disagreement. I'm the kind of person who enjoys a good debate a lot.

However, I've found the following measures to be useful:

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- I disengage from tweeters who appear uninterested in genuine dialogue
- I mute such people & I block people who insult me or others in my timeline
- I try to assume people are interested in dialogue & have good intentions until I learn otherwise.

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- This leads me to ask many questions. Many times, I read someone as being aggressive and uninterested, but then an open ended question to them reveals that they are in fact not and that I misunderstood. (And if not, see above)

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- When I do get aggravated & Twitter starts to feel less pleasant, I take a step back & take a break. Anywhere from 2 minutes to 2 weeks.
- When in a debate, I try (but not always succeed) to read my tweet before replying & rewrite if it doesn't live up to the above standards
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- When conversations get complicated and personal, I try to switch to direct messaging if the other person's DMs are open.
- In some cases, when conversations are intense but important and interesting to me, I have occasionally also met people in person afterwards.

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- In general, I aim to take on a position of being curious and caring in my interactions on Twitter. Clearly I don't always succeed! But this basic attitude tends to make Twitter super exciting, informative and pleasant for me (and ideally also for others).

Ok, so the above was first about who to follow and then about Twitter discussions. What about choosing what to tweet?

I didn't start out with any strategic plan, but I notice I often tend to tweet the following types of things:

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Information that I find interesting and that is under-represented in the general news
- Long-term economic and social trends (the news often focuses on immediate events)
- Information about new research (something I have particularly good access to but many people don't)

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- Information about things happening in countries outside North America and Western Europe
- Viewpoints and perspectives by people from generally under-represented groups
- Things that make me think, or smile

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Interestingly, I notice that this focus is probably something that contributes strongly to what makes Twitter such a positive experience for me. By focusing on such topics, and spending time writing about them, I end up thinking more about interesting or inspiring things.

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Twitter also keeps me motivated for my research, as it keeps me in the conversation of what brought me to economics in the first place: discussions about the state of the world & ways to improve it.

That gives me a real boost as I fight with standard errors or rewrites.

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Some other random thoughts:
- It helps to remember that there is no obligation to respond on Twitter. If I'm in the mood for it, I engage. If not, I don't. That's the beauty compared to email :)

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- It also helps to remember that the worst accounts on Twitter do not represent the world. In fact, many of them are likely to be trolls. Many of the other ones are 12 year old teenagers, etc. Also the loudest accounts are not the most representative.

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- Overall, Twitter feels to me like the great kitchen table conversations we had in college until deep into the night.I can sit down and join in when I feel like it, and get up and leave at any time. It's stimulating and fun, and when it's not, I just step away.

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That's it for now. I'll add more if more comes to mind later.

What are you tips of what works best for you? Feel free to share below, so that we can all learn from each other!

Ah, another feature I find very useful are Twitter lists.

You can make lists of people e.g. by topic, or short lists of favorites. Then depending on mood & available time, you can read just tweets from specific lists, rather than the entire timeline with everyone you follow.

You can make lists public, then others can also subscribe to your lists. Or you can make them private, then nobody knows who's on the list, including the people who are on it.

You can also subscribe to public lists that other people made. You can find the lists on their profile.