I spent a few hours this week eliminating some of the aspects of the internet that can always be guaranteed to ruin my mood, if not my whole day. I love the internet in many ways, and I can't imagine daily life without it, but certain apps and many, many people I run into on the net are no longer worth my time or patience. For that reason, I've been doing a lot of internet spring cleaning this week.
I started with Twitter...not all of Twitter, though, only the people who go there just to use a hit-and-run technique to viciously smear those who are not "woke" (I hate that word) enough to suit them. Now, I enjoy the "book people" on Twitter a lot, most of them anyway, so I started blocking everyone who says anything nasty - or just stupid - about others in order to make themselves look good (the kind of "virtue signaling" we've all heard so much about). "Blocking" is a relatively easy process on Twitter, and after having blocked almost 450 accounts, I now have a fine-tuned Twitter feed that is all about books, college sports, and jigsaw puzzles. Sadly, not all "book people" made the cut, though, because a few prominent authors are among the most self-absorbed virtue-signalers on the planet. But now I can actually look forward to clicking on Twitter to see what the chatter is all about.
I'm tired: tired of political correctness, tired of "wokeness," tired of cancel culture, and tired of having to work so hard not to offend a bunch of morons on both sides of every argument. It's just all gotten too silly for me to bother with anymore. So it's goodbye to Joyce Carol Oates, Don Winslow, Stephen King, Greg Isles, Rebecca Makkai, Attica Locke, Tim Hallinan, and Brad Thor, among over 400 others who refuse to stop displaying their own brand of group-hate to the world so regularly. The "400 others" include every politician or news person on Twitter who makes it to my Twitter feed because I no longer trust a one of them to tell me the truth, and I don't want to hear about their books anymore.
I don't need Twitter or Facebook for "the news." I get my news from multiple sources from all over the world so that I can compare "facts" and interpretations of those facts from varying viewpoints. The "Twitter Books" app I've created for myself turns out to be a pretty good app. Twitter and Facebook...not so much.
I've deleted my Twitter account twice already, the last time for good - just not for me. My FB account consists of 23 family and/or friends from my past work life. I can't deal with drama anymore. I do have an Instagram account with family/friends and some book people/publishers. (I rarely post - I'm more of a lurker:)
ReplyDeleteSites like Twitter and Facebook seem to bring out the worst in human nature, for sure. But the scariest thing about them is that they attract some people with obvious mental problems who seem to spend their whole lives saying things about people they disagree with in the nastiest terms imaginable. What bothers me is how easily those people make me angry enough to want to respond to them in their own terms. it's all so vicious that I want no part of that conversation. I'm really, really disappointed in the list of authors I mentioned: they are all so filled with hate that I've lost all respect for them and their lack of self-control.
DeleteI did drop Twitter completely and would like to drop Fakebook. I loathe their nasty censorship and them pretending if they don't like an idea, it must not be factual. I am enjoying rumble.com, Dan Bongino is on there and is great. Plus Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, PragerU, and so many more.
ReplyDeleteTerra, I will continue with Twitter as long as my blocking process eliminates all the politicians, news guys, and other nasties effectively. Right now, it's just feeding me people who comment on the three topics I mentioned. I will miss the good things that Facebook used to provide before everyone lost their minds back in 2015. But now that I know more about the inner-workings of Facebook and what is going on behind the scenes, there's really no going back. "Out of sight, out of mind" works pretty well in this case.
DeleteWhich news websites are good to check out? Out of curiousity?
ReplyDeleteI subscribe to the daily digital edition of The Times & Sunday Times of London, for one source. That paper has a nice "World News" section, a COVID-19 section, and an editorial page that has comments from both sides of the political spectrum. It costs about $14 a month in the U.S., depending on the fluctuation between the pound and the dollar.
DeleteAlso: There are people like Howie Kurtz, James Rosen, Pete Williams, David Martin, Peter Schweizer, Lara Logan, Greg Jarrett, and John Solomon. Organizations include: RealClearPolitics, Just the News, The Hill, Wikileaks, the Wall Street Journal, and business news channels like CNBC, Fox Business, and Bloomberg. Conspicuous by their absence are the New York Times, CNN, PBS, and the Washington Post.
For me, it's more about finding individuals within news organizations that you trust not to like to you on purpose. That's easier in some organizations than in others.
Howie Kurtz is one of the ones I trust the most.
I have never used Twitter at all. Never saw the appeal. I'm barely active on FB- I pretty much have an account there just to follow a few family/friends. I'm pretty much just about the book blog (also my gardening blog and a few forums about fishkeeping) online, a rather quiet corner, but that suits me just fine.
ReplyDeleteI was down to using Twitter and Facebook only to promote books I enjoyed and to talk with other book people. Everything else about both services had become more an irritant than anything else...especially the way that both services steal so much private information for the users. All the hatred and name-calling, though, is what finally pushed me over the edge. Twitter may be the next to go.
DeleteGood for you for eliminating the frustrating and the negative from your online life! I can't really comment about Facebook or Twitter because I am not on either. But I have to say, I don't think I've missed out on too much.
ReplyDeleteI think, Lark, it is definitely the best thing for me. Both are very negative places, and both bring out the worst in their users. I don't see that ever changing.
DeleteI don't get the negative side of FB very much as I don't follow many people on there, just friends and family, although they 'can' be bad enough. These days it's pretty quiet but then I'm not all that active on there. I don't mind Twitter but over the last few months have got rid of about 500 people I was following who were driving me crazy so that's quieter for me too now. I'm all for peace and quiet.
ReplyDeleteFacebook went "sour" for me, Cath, when the app reached the point of being so one-sided in its views that they resorted to obvious censorship to control the "conversation" there. And then most of my friends quite using it much because they were bored with the result of Facebook's antagonistic meddling. And...honestly...I was starting to lose respect for some of my friends and relatives who were revealing aspects of their personalities I'm best not knowing about if our friendships are to endure.
DeleteYes, I understand that completely. It went sour for me twice. Firstly when my brother joined and started using anything I posted as a way, not only to bully me but to spread his political views far and wide. In the end I had to post - several times - that I did not do either politics or religion on FB and could people please keep their views off my timeline. Of course then he started with the snide remarks... This is speaking ill of the dead, but I can't help it, it's the truth. It got even more embarrassing when people started to PM me asking who this man was who going for me such a lot and I had to tell them it was my own brother. The second time was when people began calling those who disaggreed with them politically obscene names. They don't always know of course that this includes many of their friends and family. Although how they could not know that if you have a big crowd of people you're bound to get a hundred differing views, I don't know. I came to the conclusion that they just didn't care and retreated from FB to the point where I now just post links to book posts and funnies. And that's fine... takes up less time. LOL
DeleteSometimes, Cath, I think it becomes a case of "too much information" with some people, and they don't even realize that they are showing you things about themselves that you really wish you didn't have to know. It took me a while, but because I expect I'm guilty of the same, I decided Facebook is just too dangerous - and irritating - a place to be anymore. I won't completely pull the plug on Twitter as long as my Twitter-muffler continues to do the job.
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