Thread by @biblioracle

If this is people's experience of Twitter, they should absolutely quit. I recognize about 15% of it as my experience, and those things concern me occasionally, but I think the varieties of experience here are infinite. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

There are times when I realize that I'm doing too much scrolling through Twitter, but it is rarely Twitter that's at fault. I'm using Twitter to avoid something else, so if I get the feeling that I'm being unproductive. I step back and figure out what I'm avoiding.

When I'm wrapped up in something I'm working on, not only does social media disappear, the entire world fades from existence. Twitter isn't a barrier to achieving that, per se. It's more a symptom of lack of engagement than a cause.

For what it's worth, I find Twitter hugely important for my own productivity because it's a place I can be exposed to the ideas and opinions of others. I'm about to get off here and write a blog post that will incorporate three sources that I wouldn't have seen without Twitter.

Yes, scrolling through Twitter can feel "addictive," but my hunch is that it has much less pull than lots of other things people do. It's more about convenience than it being super compelling for hours upon hours. Mindless scrolling is exactly that.

I try to use Twitter mindfully, and with purpose, and honestly, it works for me.

Here's one tip. There's a handful of Twitter personalities who I think are somewhat important to keep an eye on, but who I also find super irritating. Rather than following them, I started a private list I call "Dumbest mfer's on here" that I look at max once a week.

In terms of absorption of attention and being compelling, Twitter has nothing compared to a much older technology called the book. In the piece, Flanagan remarks that Twitter made it so she couldn't read. I have the opposite experience. Twitter pushes me to books.