When you first open Twitter after a long time away, you can immediately understand why they might have trouble with continued user growth. Because there's really no other reaction than "what even is this?!", "why are everyone shouting about everything all of the time?". Still...
The flipside is that the calm and tranquil living that is a mind without Twitter eventually feels fake. Which is the damndest thing. Maybe it's just long-term withdrawal. Maybe it's like McQueen and "everything else is just waiting".
Or maybe it's just like Cypher said, the only way to really enjoy a long-term disengagement from Twitter is to somehow "remember nothing". Which of course isn't possible (is it???). Thus the pull back towards the simulacra of the public square remains.
The other thought that struck was the line of nostalgic critique. That it's not possible to go back to the "before times", because you're no longer a "before person". You cannot experience the world anno pre-Twitter any longer, because that you no longer exists.
I'm experiencing something similar being away from the US for just two months. It's very hard to turn off the pull to gape at the void. Even if it, selfishly, has limited influence on day-to-day life. I can't return to the person who hadn't lived most of my adult life there.
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