 
  • Mike Douglas

Bye Shouty Twitter?

What a few weeks it's been. In the last two to three weeks I’ve gradually decreased my time and interest in social media, particularly Twitter (just because that is were I spend most of my online time).



In the last week or two I have found social media, but again more so Twitter, has become a place that's basically a ’news’ show.‬ ‪It’s often one way conversation, which flips on a dime based on popularity, or the story of the moment.

This person is 100% bad, this person is 100% good, and a rhetoric of extremes and 'black and white thinking'. Personally, I assure you, I live in a world with a lot or shades of grey; rarely is there a clear obvious simple 'good' answer or reaction to have. Let alone an honest one of not knowing. ‬


‪There seems to be a lack of compassion or understanding for anyone that thinks differently, even if they are open to learning‬. Again there is this idea of social media being a news site, rather than being 'social' or 'networking'.

Thinking differently is how we learn and evolve; through discussion and understanding, and acknowledging in some cases our own ignorance.


In the last few weeks I have found social media has no longer been a place to share, discover and learn, educate yourself. ‪It’s filled with shouting the only voice is the loudest, proclaiming "No, do it this way, do it my way!‬"


‪Gone are the awesome conversations involving: “I didn’t know that”, “thank you for sharing”, “that’s interesting I wouldn’t have thought of it like that”‬, "wow, I would never have know/ thought that". The learning has gone, the openness has gone.



‪It’s a personal thing I guess. But I don’t have expectations of others (mainly through a lack of trust), so my only expectations are of myself. ‪

I’ve definitely made mistakes in the past and probably will do in the future. But I’m ready to learn and to be educated and to share my own insights too. ‬


There are so many things we can learn about and discuss: mental health, poverty, race inequalities, gender stereotyping and the general lack of compassion we sometimes show.


For now I have changed how I am using social media, though that change has mainly been using it less.



I also think there is a common misunderstand of social media 'communities'. For me it's about the community you create around yourself. There isn't necessarily a 'the community'.

So, I have unfollowed a few people and muted a few more, I have also found a few people that are passionate about things I don't know as much about, but want to know more (which has previously been a great way to refresh my community online).

It is this thought process that has led me to some interesting conversations or new knowledge in the past; such as moon cups, stomas, infertility, homelessness, gender and sexuality struggles during puberty and many more topics/ subjects.


I hope/ know social media (and twitter) will be a resource I use more again in the future. But for now I am going to limit my time and my investment in social media. Plus, I need to limit the amount of times I am exposed to the words "Daily Briefing" and "World Beating System", the UK is a difficult confusing and often misleading place right now.




 
https://www.openjournalbc.com/post/bye-shouty-twitter
www.openjournalbc.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2021-31
988505
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:CPC5KSV5TNAOPFETAUP34EYSINMZ3MOI
<urn:uuid:e8f926e4-1ca8-4572-9269-287b6f695c38>
2021-07-25T02:44:46Z
185.230.60.177
text/html
sha1:7ZVRUWMDL22UNXCWCXQBJD342XNU55EJ
<urn:uuid:70f5f4f7-7c37-494f-9540-3035440705d8>
https://www.openjournalbc.com/post/bye-shouty-twitter
response
<urn:uuid:7d3f873f-e4db-4c56-9c7a-08612fbd91f1>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2021-31
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for July/August 2021
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-15.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.18 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.2-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/