Jumping On and Off Twitter

There are two types of Twitter users. Those that are still using it daily, and angry with what Musk is doing, and those that quit weeks ago, and come back every now and then to see how things have changed, or stayed the same. I am surprised that to some degree the site feels the same and yet, of course, it isn’t.

I am surprised to see who stayed around, who is still using the site, and whether the community feels lively, or dead. It’s both alive and dead. It is Schrodinger’s cat. It is still alive and filled with news about how the COVID pandemic is not over. People who know the pandemic is not over have stuck around on Twitter.

Disengaged

When I go to Twitter now I do so as a tourist, rather than a local. I gave up on Twitter weeks ago. Now whether it goes down or not, will not change my daily routine. If it goes down tomorrow I will already have a replacement in place. I don’t know what it is, but I am less invested in Twitter. I know that its days are numbered.

Disliking the Fediverse

One of the biggest strengths of the Fediverse is that it’s distributed and we can integrate our blogs straight into peoples feeds if we feel like doing that. The drawback to the Fediverse is that it is a young community of strangers trying to impose their views of the world on others, rather than just having conversations. People are fighting for human rights, but I don’t mean in a positive way. They’re trying to convert and indoctrinate people into thinking their way, rather than reasoning, and building empathy. This turns me off of using the Fediverse.

The Unfamiliar

As I said yesterday, Twitter is a network where we have been friends with certain users for over a decade, and met them in person multiple times. On the Fediverse we have yet to spend years getting to know each other and building strong links. WE’re strangers, and we’re still looking for a community to become part of.

It is paradoxical that whilst social media is huge, communities are scattered and hard to find, so it’s hard to find a group that we want to commit too.

The Slow Timeline

Although this could sound like an empty problem, one of the issues with the fediverse is that I am following people, but I can often refresh the timeline for minutes or hours at a time, without seeing new posts. The Fediverse is still quiet, if you don’t find active people to follow. You can’t doom scroll, for the simple reason that the timeline doesn’t refresh permanently, like it does on Twitter.

The Clear Benefit

Although Twitter and the Fediverse being less engaging might sound like a bad thing, it isn’t. When social media is a constant distraction it becomes easy to spend hours a day being distracted. Now that social media is less sticky, we can get back into the habit of completing things, even without a fast approaching deadline. We have time to blog, to read, to watch tv, and more. Social media, as a personal life, is a thing of the past, for now, until new communities form.

And Finally

One of the strongest features of the Fediverse is that writing blog posts has become akin to social media, because blog posts can either be shared as blog posts that people have to click through to read, or they can be posted natively, within the Fediverse. Although I am writing this blog post now, it is fully integrated to the Fediverse, and thus, part of the conversation. Now if we want to be visible, we have to integrate ourselves within the Fediverse. We don’t need to wait for search engines and so on to index our site. We wait for people to repost, and comment.