It’s been a huge part of my life for years now, I joined Twitter soon after it started back in 2006, I’ve had a Facebook page since pretty much day one. Most of my adult life, I’ve checked social media on a daily basis.
I wrote about this at the start of the year, so I thought I’d do a bit of an update.
Recently, I’ve noticed a deterioration in my own mental health – I’ve found myself becoming increasingly negative about things. Many times, I’ll write a post, and then just delete it, thinking “Ah no one wants to read that” or “this is just going to get some sarcastic comment”, or even worse, I write something purposely to annoy someone else, just to get it off my chest.
This is not good!
So, a couple of days ago, I had a big clear out on Twitter. I deleted a lot of negative people, and muted even more. You make a conscience decision when you open a social media app to interact and read the text on your screen. Whilst you can’t control what people type, you can control whether you see it.
Take for example, if you know someone who is using social media just to vent (which is totally fair enough) – their words can really strike a negative mindset in other people. Without being mean, I call these people “toxic” – not in the true sense, but in the literal term:
“Causing unpleasant feelings; harmful or malicious”
It’s the unpleasant feelings that I’m trying to mute, or block. I don’t want to give up on Social Media, but I want to start enjoying it again. I’ve even written an app that will rate the sentiment of my timeline before I open it, so I know what I’m letting myself in for.
I’ve also cleaned up those people who simply post catty little comments, that are mostly aimed at other people they follow (or don’t follow, in some cases). Again, I know it’s a portal to vent, I guess it’s the equivalent of an “under the breath” comment, but paranoia can be a thing, and I don’t need to spend the next hour thinking “do I know this person, and is that a dig at me” – knowing full well it isn’t as I don’t really know them, but it just takes small things to trigger bigger things in people.
I’ve also muted a LOT of keywords on Twitter – at the moment, mainly around Brexit, Boris, and so on. I read the news, I can source what I need from the news outlets that I trust – so I don’t need to be overwhelmed by the fake news and opinions on Twitter. I for one, love debate, but I don’t like nasty, argumentative threads that start to become very targeted and personal for the people involved. Keyboard warriors thrive from this!
I guess I’m just at that mindset now where I’m one *event* away from giving up on Social Media all together – maybe writing this and having a clear up of my followers and timeline will be the trigger I need to get back to enjoying it, or the push I need to just quit it altogether.
We shall see……