Anybody considering leaving Twitter?

[steve ridgway]

Actually my wife's persuaded me to sign up to Ex-Twitter. I do know a lot about local geography, beauty spots and places to walk, so may post about that in future, but for the moment I'm happy to let it just feed me masses of stuff about science and nature while I get used to it .

[Karl Henning]

There are still tweets about science and nature? 😉

[Iota]

My wife's still very keen on Ex-Twitter. Mainly for discussing serious health issues that are suppressed by other media with professionals, researchers and people looking to improve their wellbeing, but she also follows plenty of fun and positive posters. I don't use it myself as have nothing important to say so would sit there forever with zero followers, but she has some 11,000.

At root exactly how the body works and the effects that foods and particularly pharmaceutical drugs have on it, the biochemical mechanisms involved.

That sounds very interesting, I'm almost tempted to sign up myself. Though I won't do, the cons greatly outweigh the pros on most social media for me, more JOMO than FOMO.

[Kalevala]

That sounds very interesting, I'm almost tempted to sign up myself. Though I won't do, the cons greatly outweigh the pros on most social media for me, more JOMO than FOMO.

O.k., I'm behind the eight ball...what do those terms mean? 

K

[Luke]

Joy/Fear Of Missing Out

[brewski]

Update: I deactivated my Twitter account, meaning, I have until mid-December to reconsider, but I can tell I'm gone for good. It's a little sad, just considering how vibrant and useful the platform was in its early years. Oh well. I now have a zip file of all of my posts, though I'm not sure exactly how that maybe helpful, other than in nostalgic "remember when" musings.

Meanwhile, I'm on Bluesky, here. The platform is growing rapidly, and now has over 20 million users. So far, it's a much better alternative: interesting people, few bots and trolls (their moderation team strikes quickly and accurately), no one is being artificially promoted, and the conversations have been civilized, sane, sometimes provocative. I'm engaging with some accounts of people new to me, many of whom were likely not on Twitter. Much better.

-Bruce

[Number Six]

I agree with everything brewski says about being on Bluesky. I joined it, and it was everything I missed from the early days of Twitter. Really wonderful.

And I deleted my account after about a week because I found that just like in the early days of Twitter, I was spending every free minute scrolling and refreshing. 

[Spotted Horses]

I agree with everything brewski says about being on Bluesky. I joined it, and it was everything I missed from the early days of Twitter. Really wonderful.

And I deleted my account after about a week because I found that just like in the early days of Twitter, I was spending every free minute scrolling and refreshing. 

I signed up. And like the early days of twitter, I didn't see the point. A lot of random stuff and people making fun of Trump. I wonder if I started posting about my music listening their algorithm would assemble a group of people with similar interests? Probably not. The defining feature of "social media," that mostly it decides what you see, is off-putting to me.

[Brian]

I signed up. And like the early days of twitter, I didn't see the point. A lot of random stuff and people making fun of Trump. I wonder if I started posting about my music listening their algorithm would assemble a group of people with similar interests? Probably not. The defining feature of "social media," that mostly it decides what you see, is off-putting to me.

Bluesky does not have an algorithm that shows you related things by default. There is a "Discover" tab that seems to mostly show popular things related to what you are following, but the way for people to find you via listening would be to use search. (Or to follow Karl, me, and some of the composers and other artists on there!)

I do like Bluesky for this reason - it shows me only what I explicitly asked to see, and nothing more. But this does require me to know what I want to see, i.e., who is on there and what name they are using.

[steve ridgway]

I'm unexpectedly enjoying Ex-Twitter. Took the general feed, followed some people, unfollowed a few again and am now watching the feed just from 100 or so I'm following, plus what they're retweeting, and finding more to follow through that. I've got 50 something followers already - some of whom are genuine . The classical music was a letdown though, couldn't find anything other than the "popular classics" .