Welcome Back! Bye, Twitter.

Photo by Damien Walmsley, Flickr Creative Commons

I'm off Twitter. 

After 13 years and 16,000+ "tweets." I'm done. I'll keep my identity, and probably feed this blog there. But I'm done interacting.

When I joined Twitter so many moons ago, I was curious to see how social media "worked." I wanted to see what kind of space it was... how human interaction functioned... how I functioned on the platform. For many years, I loved Twitter. Really. I got to hear so many interesting voices that I would never have heard anywhere else. I curated my follows assiduously. The platform really "platformed" folks with good and important things to say. I'm better for all of that.

Why leave now?

Elon, for one. I don't have respect for him as a human being. I don't think he's good. I don't want to be part of a company he owns.

Second, I'm less and less convinced that what I learn on Twitter is more meaningful than the harm it's doing to me and to the world. As I said before, I used to value the platform for the voices I heard there. But now I understand that the quality of those voices is compromised by the kinds of conversations that are possible--and impossible--on the platform. I see so clearly now how aggressively negative comments "perform." I see little dialogue. Rare is the deep dive into a complicated idea. It's not just other people--I see all these things in myself, on my own profile. It was my partner who said to me not long ago, "I don't like who you are on Twitter." That was hard to hear. But I agree. I didn't like the way I was there, either. Impulsive. Prone to anger and... outrage. It's not who I am. It's not who I want to be.

The platform doesn't bring out our best. It doesn't serve the common good very well in a time where dialogue, connection, empathy, and understanding are necessary for the preservation of democracy and the planet. 

Twitter, it was fun. But it's over.

So, here I am. Back on Blogger. In 2022. Who'd have guessed? Maybe I'll get a Word Press site. But maybe not. There's something great about being on a platform that no one else is using. Heck, I'm a pastor in the mainline church and I've still got a "yahoo" email address. I'm used to being on platforms that no one else is using.

Please feel free to leave me comment and stay in touch!