Leaving Twitter

After almost nine years on the platform, I’ve decided it’s time I stopped using Twitter. While I won’t delete my account — I’ll leave it up there for posterity — I’ll no longer peruse or post there. I’ve already reached this point with Facebook and Instagram, but leaving Twitter hurts because for a while at least, I enjoyed being part of the internet’s town square and the #WrittingCommunity.

I don’t feel compelled to write an essay justifying my reasons, suffice to say that I no longer get what I want out of the platform, and my increasingly sporadic tweets only serve to feed a broken machine.

I’m done with social media.

I don’t care that my reach is small and about to get smaller, but I do care about my integrity and mental health, and social media is great at compromising both, while offering increasingly diminishing returns.

I left everything Meta months ago. I have no interest in Mastodon, or Discord, or any of the alternatives suggested as replacements. The idea of engaging with a new community and building a new following is quite frankly exhausting, and I haven’t the time nor the inclination to do so.

So, I shall retreat to my blog, my personal, quiet corner of the internet, where there are no bots, no advertising, no algorithms, no politics, and no culture war — just me and my writing.