Best advice I can give from my personal experience with Twitter: Don’t sign up for Twitter.
This is my story.
I was on it for about 6 months and developed a respectable following of about 5,000 followers. I wrote both humorous and supportive tweets; if someone tweeted that they were depressed (or in some cases, suicidal), I was there for them. I was particularly active in the parenting community, where we’d all commiserate about our kids and share funny stories. I tweeted at some of my favorite celebrities and was always ecstatic when they’d respond to me personally (I still have the screenshots of a lot of them). I developed actual friendships with a lot of people, NEVER crossing the line or flirting with women, and always making it clear that I was a married man and was there for a few laughs and to make a few strangers smile. It became a refuge for me, and I suspect millions of other Twitter users, where I could actually be myself and people seemed to genuinely appreciate it.
I learned to stay away from Twitter’s “dark side.” There are people out there who find genuine enjoyment in hurting others, or arguing with strangers, or even worse, getting others to publicly shame other users for some perceived slight. There are a ton of unwritten rules which can be pretty confusing. At times, it was like being back in high school.
However, for me, the good outweighed the bad and It started to become an addiction. I loved getting all the “likes” and “retweets” because it gave me a false sense of validation…someone actually thought what I wrote was funny or was worth repeating! I was gaining tons of new followers every day and showing up on “who to follow” lists regularly. Some of my tweets got picked up by popular websites, which only fed the fire. I’d wake up in the middle of the night with what I thought was a great tweet, and immediately reach for my phone. I’d find myself sneaking my phone out at work for a quick few minutes, justifying it by telling myself I still produced more at my company than most of my department. Eventually, I spent more time staring at my phone when I should’ve been focusing on my job, or more importantly, my family. It was beginning to become a real problem but I refused to admit it.
Then one day, someone called me out. They said I had been replying to too many of their tweets and threatened to expose me to their many followers as a stalker. In my mind, I had just been being me: the supportive, funny guy who would never say anything either sexually explicit, creepy or that would intentionally hurt someone. It would’ve been easy for me to just block that person and just move on, but it really made me take a step back and take a closer look at myself. I realized that Twitter had become much more important to me than the actual, real life relationships I had been neglecting. I wrote a few good-byes to some of the people I regularly interacted with, and I deleted my account before things got worse.
It’s been about 6 months now since I’ve had a Twitter account. Every once in a while, I’ll still check to see if any of my old “friends” are still out there, or wonder if anyone misses me, but ultimately I know that the best decision I could’ve made was deleting my account.
Whoa Rob, thanks for sharing your story. I can totally relate to the rush of feeling validated by a like, RT, share, etc. not only on Twitter, but all of the platforms. I’ve had to take breaks myself. It’s such a slippery slope. I commend you for your self-awareness and honesty.
Best advice I can give from my personal experience with Twitter: Don’t sign up for Twitter.
This is my story.
I was on it for about 6 months and developed a respectable following of about 5,000 followers. I wrote both humorous and supportive tweets; if someone tweeted that they were depressed (or in some cases, suicidal), I was there for them. I was particularly active in the parenting community, where we’d all commiserate about our kids and share funny stories. I tweeted at some of my favorite celebrities and was always ecstatic when they’d respond to me personally (I still have the screenshots of a lot of them). I developed actual friendships with a lot of people, NEVER crossing the line or flirting with women, and always making it clear that I was a married man and was there for a few laughs and to make a few strangers smile. It became a refuge for me, and I suspect millions of other Twitter users, where I could actually be myself and people seemed to genuinely appreciate it.
I learned to stay away from Twitter’s “dark side.” There are people out there who find genuine enjoyment in hurting others, or arguing with strangers, or even worse, getting others to publicly shame other users for some perceived slight. There are a ton of unwritten rules which can be pretty confusing. At times, it was like being back in high school.
However, for me, the good outweighed the bad and It started to become an addiction. I loved getting all the “likes” and “retweets” because it gave me a false sense of validation…someone actually thought what I wrote was funny or was worth repeating! I was gaining tons of new followers every day and showing up on “who to follow” lists regularly. Some of my tweets got picked up by popular websites, which only fed the fire. I’d wake up in the middle of the night with what I thought was a great tweet, and immediately reach for my phone. I’d find myself sneaking my phone out at work for a quick few minutes, justifying it by telling myself I still produced more at my company than most of my department. Eventually, I spent more time staring at my phone when I should’ve been focusing on my job, or more importantly, my family. It was beginning to become a real problem but I refused to admit it.
Then one day, someone called me out. They said I had been replying to too many of their tweets and threatened to expose me to their many followers as a stalker. In my mind, I had just been being me: the supportive, funny guy who would never say anything either sexually explicit, creepy or that would intentionally hurt someone. It would’ve been easy for me to just block that person and just move on, but it really made me take a step back and take a closer look at myself. I realized that Twitter had become much more important to me than the actual, real life relationships I had been neglecting. I wrote a few good-byes to some of the people I regularly interacted with, and I deleted my account before things got worse.
It’s been about 6 months now since I’ve had a Twitter account. Every once in a while, I’ll still check to see if any of my old “friends” are still out there, or wonder if anyone misses me, but ultimately I know that the best decision I could’ve made was deleting my account.
Whoa Rob, thanks for sharing your story. I can totally relate to the rush of feeling validated by a like, RT, share, etc. not only on Twitter, but all of the platforms. I’ve had to take breaks myself. It’s such a slippery slope. I commend you for your self-awareness and honesty.
thanks, Ly! Wish I was able to take a break from it, but for me the only option was to delete my account.
I wish you the absolute best of luck!