An interesting read on the effects of taking a one week break from social media on mental health.

As someone that has their own mental health challenges I’m going to give this one a go, especially with WWDC looming and the draw to always being online.

The present study shows that asking people to take a 1-week break from SM can lead to significant improvements in well-being, depression, and anxiety. Future research should extend this to clinical populations and examine effects over the longer term.

I’m tempted to give this one a go.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my stance on leaving Twitter for a bit but I’m discovering that it’s where the community is, especially readers of my content. I now feel that I’m writing for no one.

Matt wrote up a great post over at Birchtree and after using Discord for a bit and setting up my own Slack I’m of the same mind.

I’ve had little to no interaction in my own Slack, which I thought could be a good alternative but at the end of the day I need to stick to where the community already is. I do get readers from general web searches, it’s where the majority of my traffic comes from but when it comes to interaction, it’s 90% via Twitter.

It was thanks to the friends I made via Twitter that I freelance wrote, got support when I needed it to keep my site going and get comments on my writing.

Managing the negative of Twitter is something I’ll need to do via mute and managing who I’m following.

Regarding it’s owner, well they don’t own it yet and I’ll continue to take a wait and see approach.

I’m so conflicted but serving the readers of my content is taking priority and I’ll be patient (I’m not great at this) with this whole thing.

I’ve been using Twitter for years and this week has definitely had me thinking a lot about the service. Elon is showing this week the way the service is going to end up to me and for it’s not a good one. I’m seeing him mocking his own future employees, who are under a huge amount of stress just showing him for the troll he is and lack of human decency he has.

I’ve decided to stop using the service completely for my own mental health, this reminds me of being back in 2016 where a certain bully was using it as his pulpit.

I’m not deleting my account just yet as I’ll be sharing my posts from here via automation but logging on and using it as I did is stopping.

I’ll be checking in on the service maybe now and again to see if someone else has outbid Musk but I’m done.

How are you feeling about the service?

I’ve been posting a bit less to Twitter over the last few days since it’s announcement of the acquisition but on checking back in it’s quiet. I’m not getting a lot of interaction and those that I see posting multiple times a day aren’t posting at all.

I feel people are figuring out what to do next. Some will be on board and still posting and others like myself wondering what to do and where to post your thoughts.

I’ve deleted Tweetbot off my iPhone now and will be in various slacks, discord and posting here. I might even give Mastodon a look again.

With the news of the Twitter acquisition by Musk I’m revisiting smaller more engaged communities. This is via Slack, Discord and a kind of Twitter equivalent in Mastodon (still figuring out my old email I registered with).

I feel this is the way to go now, I won’t be deleting my Twitter account and I’ll still check in but I’m looking at the wider view of social media apps.

I have an LJPUK slack if you’re interested too by the way.

I’ve realised that I’ve become a passive user of Twitter since 2020, I’ve not felt the need to share any thoughts there at all. I enjoy replying to comments on posts I share and replying to some threads but I just don’t have anything to give.

I share here because for me it feels more natural, now in the light of a potential new Twitter owner maybe I’ve lost interest in the platform at the right time.

Twitter to me now just feels like talking loudly at a party (not that I go to many of these) hoping someone latches onto my conversation.

Writing at my blog feels more personal, sharing more and knowing that readers that want to see my content will.