Twitter Quitter nationalreview.com/magazine/2018/…
Via @davidharsanyi
Lately, I’ve been thinking about deleting my Twitter account. It’s not that the social-media platform is a cesspool of depravity, bad faith, unhinged antagonism, lockstepping partisanship, self-perpetuating irrationality (breathe) and...
Lately, I’ve been thinking about deleting my Twitter account. It’s not that the social-media platform is a cesspool of depravity, bad faith, unhinged antagonism, lockstepping partisanship, self-perpetuating irrationality (breathe) and...
...rumor-mongering, intellectual debauchery, bad grammar, anxiety, conspiracy theories, gratuitous vulgarity, and ad hominem attacks. Anyone, after all, can find a handful of good reasons to remain on social media.
As fun as it’s been interacting with readers and sparring with antagonists, the upside for continuing to do so seems to be shrinking rapidly.
For one thing, lots of folks have been getting in trouble over their old tweets these days.
For one thing, lots of folks have been getting in trouble over their old tweets these days.
What was once a completely innocuous quip in some long-forgotten quarrel over marginal tax rates can easily be repurposed to turn an innocent fellow into a transphobic Benito Mussolini fanboy.
One minute you’re offering a thought experiment — once a mainstay of political discourse — and the next thing you know it’s stripped of context and you’re a misogynistic puppy hater. There’s little you can do about it.
Even wholly innocuous, apolitical comments that fail to adhere to the stringent rules of political correctness are now seized on by a screeching mob of priggish social warriors digital bullies who will attempt to demolish careers of those whose worldview rubs them the wrong way.
This makes it virtually impossible for people to engage in good-faith debate online anymore. But if you’re interested in having every spontaneous comment you’ve ever made parsed and flayed — and saved in perpetuity as a screenshot for good measure — you’ve come to the right place
Social media exacerbate the worst tendencies in people, and I’m no exception. Not only has Twitter made me a worse person, it has made me think less of other people as well.
To be fair, the perpetual flow of stupidity and unpleasantness one sees streaming down our screens could make even the most optimistic person take a bleaker view of humanity.
According to researchers at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, people resisting tweeting experience higher “self-control failure rates” than people trying to quit smoking or drinking, despite the fact those activities have the upside of generating pleasure.
