Goodbye, X

 I left 'X' (the former Twitter) today.  Deactivated my account permanently.  I'd been on the site since... 2009?  Something like that.

Goodbye

Mainly, I was following the Marie Kondo question- "Does this bring joy?"- and more and more, the answer was a resounding 'no'.  The original concept of Twitter- a place where anyone could post a short message- was great.  People could put up short messages, break news, come up with witty quips.  I followed a lot of people on the site; not only friends, but whoever was in a field that interested me; poker players, professional wrestlers, chefs (I picked up a ton of recipes).  

Was there politics?  Absolutely- I followed several people, not only people who I agreed with (Jonah Goldberg, Megan McArdle), but people I disagreed with (Matthew Yglesias) to see their opinion.  

But over time, the site got more and more toxic.  And yes, part of the blame belongs to Elon Musk- a man who has some brains and a ton of resources and seems to be using them to be a player in a culture war.  But he just greased the skids- this has been coming for a long time.

Social media- Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, etc- has been a powerful tool.  It's given everyone access to a megaphone that can be heard across the planet.  But it's a tool that we've abused, and one that I don't think we are ready to handle properly.  The rise of social media has been accompanied by a rise of depression, and we as a species are far more toxic to each other than we were 30 years ago.  

I would have guessed a tool that would let us see the insights of everyone on the planet would help us understand each other.  On this, I've been proven wrong so far.

Much like the Supercomputer in Wargames, I've realized that social media is a strange game, and the only winning move is not to play.  So I've withdrawn from the world's megaphone.  I don't expect to ever be back.