Thinking about getting back on Twitter

So now that the world’s richest African-American—who has done more to save the world from the evil sun monster than everyone at COP 25 put together—has now bought Twitter and promised to bring back free speech to the platform, I am seriously considering whether I ought to make a new Twitter account and become active on social media again.

I deleted my Twitter account back in 2016, before the elections, and blogged about it (in less than 140 characters, of course) by saying “life is better without it.” And that’s true. Life is so much better without a Twitter addiction, and that’s the one thing that makes me reticent to get back on the platform.

There is no doubt that our current incarnation of Twitter, before the Elon Musk takeover, is a toxic dumpster fire of outrage and stupidity. But it is also the public square. Life without social media is a lot healthier in a lot of ways, but it does turn you into something of a hermit as far as the internet goes.

The thing is, I’m not very optimistic about Musk’s makeover of Twitter doing much to change the toxicity of the platform, because I think that toxicity has less to do with politics (though that certainly is a factor) and more to do with the dangers of social media addiction itself. In other words, I think our toxic politics is a symptom of social media toxicity, not a cause. The first half of The Social Dilemma really got this right, though the second half was mostly just bad propaganda about the threat of “misinformation” to “our democracy.”

So before I get back on Twitter again, I need to come up with some personal rules in order to keep it from becoming addictive, unhealthy, or toxic to my author brand. Back in 2010, Douglas Rushkoff came up with a sort of ten commandments for digital media, and that seems like a good place to start. His ten commandments are:

1. Do not be always on
2. Live in person
3. You may always choose none of the above
4. You are never completely right
5. One size does not fit all
6. Be yourself
7. Do not sell your friends
8. Tell the truth
9. Share, don’t steal
10. Program or be programmed

I probably ought to reread the book where he explains all of these commandments. It’s a quick read, with some good theory and a lot of practical wisdom. It is over a decade old, though, so I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff we’ve learned since then. Some of these rules probably don’t go far enough, while other may go too far.

In any case, I’m not going to get back onto Twitter until I have a plan, because the last thing I want is to get addicted to all of the toxic outrage and watch as my career (and possibly life) implodes because of it.

What personal rules do you follow when using social media?