I did something so so stupid for a month and I regret it deeply. I made a Twitter account. I'm ashamed of myself, really. I guess I just wanted to see if I was missing out on any stupid Internet images or cool art.
It kinda sucks. The algorithm isn't terrible, but it isn't great either. It had this remarkable ability to show me the same posts 5 times over, and then placed me in a category of "depressed person that has interpersonal issues" and refused to show me anything else besides that and cats. If I watched one video, I noticed that suddenly my whole timeline would be flooded with videos and *nothing* else for a time period, despite me consistently responding more to images instead. It showed me cool art sometimes, but mostly showed me memes that were made by people screaming for some sort of human connection that they weren't able to find through a screen.
Overall, it was mildly entertaining at best, but I could actively feel my brain turning into overcooked spaghetti. I mostly used it when I had awkward gap periods between things. It never made me laugh especially hard, and it frequently was flat out uninteresting. Even during the month I had the account, I went a week without even opening it because it was so boring to use. Most of the brain rot came from the horrific illiteracy that I saw on a regular basis. I seriously could not understand half the fucking words that people said, or the shortenings they used, or the slang, or really anything at all. I wish I documented the worst of it, because it truly was horrific. I've noticed that ever since I started using more social media-like websites, I've actually lost lots of my previous vocabulary and understanding of grammar. I scrape by now, but it's nowhere close to the level that I was. Twitter users are the endgame of that.
What's the average age of Twitter users? 40? We are so screwed.
February 28 update:
Something about this posts keeps bothering me, and I'm not sure why. I think I feel guilty for actually trying horrible normie social media platform in the first place. It's public knowledge that Twitter is a shithole in every way, and yet I still knowingly tried to use it. I was mostly driven by burnout, and I was seeking low effort dopamine. I didn't pretend it was anything else but that, but it was making me guilty every time I opened it (for the best, of course, but still)! When I wrote this, I think I was mostly aiming to confirm to myself that social media is pretty rotten for you. One day I will win against the little demon in my brain that says that every moment needs to be entertaining. I must, I must, I must!
