As you might have seen on Twitter, I’m moving my social onto Micro.Blog as a test for a bit as I am feeling completely worn out by the attitude and way that free social platforms (and video sharing) sites work. Rewarding negativity and outrage isn’t a service I want to support so I’m slowly making moves to come off them.

I’m going to posting to my Micro.Blog exclusively now for a bit to see how I get on and if it sticks I might even move the blog over.

See you there.

I’ve become more and more aware of the negative effects that social media and YouTube are having on my mental health lately and as you may have noticed I’m becoming less and less active on them. What has been good though is the introduction of Slack into my life. I’m in a few different slack rooms now, all of which contain most of the people I interact with on Twitter but with no manipulation by the companies that run them.

I’m finding that I’m much happier when I’m in Slack and in positive interactions than logging into Twitter and feeling bad after I’m done more than good. Don’t get me wrong, I do have good interactions on Twitter but they are outweighed by the way I feel after being on there.

I do have my own little slack room but I don’t want to add another place for people to check but if you’d be interested them let me know.

I’ve tried to take a step back from social media for a while and always struggle but I’ve found using the screen time feature in iOS has helped me limit the time I spend on them.

I’ve added a couple of limits to help me gradually reduce the time I spend on Twitter each day. I’ve set 20 minutes as a limit and will gradually reduce this slowly until it gets to 5.

I’ve been checking out the other apps via the ‘see all activity’ and tap on the app you want to add a limit to.

Anyone else using this?

I’m only a day in with taking a break but in that day I’ve noticed I’ve created more and read more.

What I’m starting to realise is having social media apps on my iPad or only checking in a browser on the computer is a good compromise if you’re looking at reducing your consumption of it.

My only social media is Twitter and Reddit (yes, I know it’s not strictly a social media platform) so going cold turkey and removing the apps from my iPhone was a good first step.

I used my iPad and realised I had left them installed so I casually checked Reddit for ten minutes and put it down. What I’ve observed is having them on my iPhone created this habit loop of checking but if I restrict them to another secondary device like a Mac or iPad then it’s much easier to engage less frequently.

Now when I want to pick up my iPhone I find I’m in an RSS reader looking at someone’s blog or listening to music. Big wins.

If you’re looking at reducing the time spent on these platforms then I’d definitely give this method a go.

I’ve noticed in the past (and rewriting this post as a reminder) that if I want to create more I need to swap my Twitter habit with a creation one. I’m finding that in downtime that I’m scrolling my feeds in Twitter or Reddit instead of doing something to benefit my mental health like playing my guitar or jotting down my thoughts here or hey even going out for a walk.

I’m going to be taking a break from Twitter especially over the next month to see if I improve my mood and frequency of output I’m happy with.

Join in with me and see what happens to your creative projects you’ve been looking to spend more time on.

I’m really not using Twitter much these days, I tend to have a flurry of tweets then go quiet for a bit. After trying and deleting the official app after finding ads and trending unbearable I’ve settled on a way to use it that matches up with how I want to use it.

I’ve only really done two things.

1. Significantly reduced the people I follow (sorry if you're in this list) but I don't want to see any politics so if I see a lot of RT that are going down this rabbit hole I unfollowed. I also unfollowed a few prominent Apple people mainly due to the fact all I'm seeing is nitpicks.
2. Using Tweetbot. An easy swap for me, I don't see many notifications of activity on my posts but that's fine. I can easily mute topics etc and only see what I want. I also don't see trends and ads, a win.

Social media isn’t that great for me being completely honest and this is definitely helping me.

I’ve been giving the official Twitter app a go based on the fact I can’t see likes etc via Tweetbot. I stay away from the whole trends etc and just use the timeline and notifications panes.

But a side effect that I wasn’t expecting was that by keeping the timeline in “top tweets first” I am using the service less. I’m no longer scrolling until I read everything but just checking top tweets a couple of times a day.

I switched to RSS for my news months ago so I’ve found that by using this method it’s let me step back from Twitter quite a bit.

I did use Safari for a while but to be honest the experience wasn’t great so I’ll leave the app in place and either set some limits or just remember to check in now and again.

If you’re looking to use social media less then I’d recommend trying out this method.

I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of time on Twitter and I’ve found the following steps have helped kick my habit of mindlessly loading and scrolling. It’s also a platform that like most social networks brings the worst to the top and as someone trying to be a bit more positive it’s having a negative effect on my wellbeing.

Remove the app

Now this depends on if you use the official app or not in some respect. I use Tweetbot so I don’t see ads or moments and the filtering tools are much more powerful. I literally cannot use the service if I’m forced to use the official app. I removed the app to a folder on the second page so I had to go looking for it. The next step I took was to remove the app completely and just check in via the Twitter site in Safari a couple of times a week. If you try this you’ll be amazed at how little you actually find yourself using it.

Cull your follows

If you want to continue using it as you are but want to see less then follow less people. What I did over time was anything I saw shared I didn’t like I stopped following that person. I went from over 700 to now around 100.

Embrace RSS

I found I was using Twitter to catch up on the latest news as it happened. What I discovered when I switched to reading news via an RSS app was I didn’t need to know everything. Checking into my RSS app a couple of times a day is enough and as a result I stopped following quite a few accounts. Unless it’s your job to report on the news it’s perfectly acceptable not knowing everything going on.

Screen time

I feel this is a last resort but use the screen time features in iOS to remind you to take a break. Limit yourself to 30 mins a day and see how that feels. This didn’t work for me but it’s an option built into iOS that is worth checking out.

Ease out of it

I wouldn’t recommend going cold turkey but it’s what I did a few weeks before Star Wars came out and it was pretty difficult to stop the habit outright. Some people respond well to this method but you should know yourself well enough to know if this is what you need personally. I’ve weaned myself off it slowly using the above and with only a few checks a week feel I’m on the right path (for me).

This started as soon as Disney+ came out, see we don’t have it in the UK. I jokingly thought that with my love of Star Wars and the fact I don’t want The Mandalorian spoiled for me I’d see how long I could stay off various platforms.

First up I’ll address the worst offender- YouTube. It’s impossible to use this service without the algorithm showing you click bait and negative videos. Even if you stick to your subscriptions you’ll have recommendations thrown in your face. I decided this was a big risk and first off deleted it from all of my devices. I have to say that I don’t miss it at all. I use to go down rabbit holes that would either result in my feeling bad or looking at making a purchase (don’t mention mechanical watches to me at the moment …). Cutting myself off from YouTube really has improved my mood and I’m finding I have more time and focus back to my days. The time back is somewhat down to my lack of self control but the mood improvement is definitely down to not being presented with stupid click bait negativity.

Now onto Twitter. This was harder as I’d developed a habit of checking the slot machine, mindlessly checking my feed when I had a spare five minutes. Deleting the app and using Safari a few months ago has helped curb that little habit but I still checked on notifications. Turns out this habit change has made dropping the service completely a lot easier. I’m over a week now with no Twitter and whilst I do miss the interactions I’m feeling in a better place without it. Twitter has become the place you go to get something off your chest, somewhere to complain. I’m guilty of this too and not being on there I’m not contributing. Yes there is some positive but I’ve found the negative outweighs the positive, especially at the moment. I’ve also found I’m perfectly fine not knowing about stuff as it happens and I’ll check my RSS reader for my news a couple of times a day.

Quitting these services has been the best move for my mental health I’ve made technology wise for a while and I’m hoping I can stick to it for a while longer.

I’m constantly trying to get better at managing my social media time and I thought the best first step (this time!) was to move everything social to my iPad. I use the iPad more intentionally so I’m going to manage social along with my blog in a folder of it’s own. On the iPad I have a blog folder with all of my Blog stuff, it’ll live in there.

If you’re trying to cut back on your social media a bit then I’d recommend moving it off your smartphone and onto a laptop or tablet so that it’s less of a temptation and more intentional.

You know I struggle with social media, I got into Twitter pretty deep and needed to get out and regain some headspace. I’ve done a few steps to help this including unfollowing everyone and removing the apps from my iPhone.

What I’ve found is that the best way (for me) is to schedule in my social media time. I have a reminder to log into Twitter every two weeks and in that time I check my notifications and DM’s. I then spend this time to reply to any that I have.

I’ve found that this has started to help me be more creative in my writing as I’m not constantly plugged into others opinions. It’s also allowing me to take time to just be bored and have some quiet time.

YouTube has become worse for me over the last few years both as a distraction (all on me) and becoming a hive of negativity, humble brags, encouraging people to waste money and fake theories. It was a real eye opener when I used it signed out for a week but worse than that my own suggestions are also polluted with these same videos and awful thumbnails.

YouTube’s algorithm for encouraging this kind of content has gotten out of hand and I don’t want to be part of it. As I’ve written before I’m glad I stopped growing my channel about 7 years ago now I’ve seen what content YouTube encourages you to create. The way to grow is to be extreme!

I thought that I have my subscriptions that I mostly enjoy and as long as I only use it on our TV watching only those things I think I’ll be ok but when the app defaults to recommend and the first thing I see is “how I blew £2000 at (insert store name here)” I’d had enough. The content I watch I can get in podcast form so I’ve just subscribed to the podcast feed in Overcast instead.

I’ve now deleted it off all of my iOS devices, unsubscribed to all channels and deleted my account from our LG TV.

Today I set a Reminder:

I’m hoping this gets me back to only checking Twitter weekly. Between snarky responses and getting lost in threads containing negativity I need to get it back off my phone and get some headspace back.

I started using Micro.blog a little while ago now and although I don’t use it as a Twitter alternative, I do use it to post small updates to my blog. When I experimented with it a while ago I found that being off Twitter so much more helped me be more creative and gain more followers to my blog as my content went there instead.

My main issue with this was the lack of interaction as readers don’t tend to like to comment on blogs as there are more barriers to entry.

So I’m going to make the following changes for a month or so so see what happens and if I get some more headspace back.

• Delete the Twitter apps from my iPhone
• Check Twitter once or twice a week (instead of multiple times a day) for interactions on my content
• Post updates to my blog from Micro,blog, not long form but smaller updates on how things are going

See you on the blog.

At the beginning of the year I’d decided I’d had enough of contributing to Zuckerberg’s empire and made a decision to leave Facebook. I knew I’d miss updates from my friends but mostly my feed was manipulated anyway just to see (almost always negative) news, which wasn’t good for my general wellbeing. This on top of the privacy concerns and their apparent lack of valuing anyone was the final straw. My problem was that I’d removed my phone number but two factor was still turned on. I was locked out.

I didn’t use it for 11 months, I had an inactive account. As far as Facebook was concerned I wasn’t an active user, this is a good thing to hurt their numbers. My issue was my data was still there. Well this weeks revelations was enough for me to sit down and figure my account out. I had to send in a redacted passport, removing all my info aside from the basic they needed. Within 5 minutes I had access again.

I checked my feed and notifications and then download my photos in an archive. Something to be fair Facebook make easy. Once I had this archive (html) downloaded to iCloud I proceeded to delete my account.

I was free, well not quite.

I also had an instagram account, something I quite like using. I had to stick by my principles on this one and deleted that too.

I can get my photo fix elsewhere, it wasn’t worth keeping my account and supporting this immoral company anymore.

So, end of 2018 and I’m finally free of using any Facebook properties - it feels great!

After seeing missed conversations and threads on Tweetbot I decided to give the official Twitter app another go. Well, I lasted 48 hours and had to delete.

• I hated seeing more news
• I had an advert every 3 posts on my timeline, even disliking ads and muting accounts didn't help
• Muting is more fiddly
• Dark mode just isn't dark enough

Back to Tweetbot and some calm.

Having played with Micro.blog a little and disconnecting slowly from social media I asked myself, could I swap social media with my blog?

It’s what I’ve always done in the past before social to share my thoughts and since most networks are toxic these days it might be time to retreat back. I’d still share links via Twitter but that’s all it’s used for, a conduit for linking to content.

I’ve not used Facebook since January 2018 and deleted my Instagram account several times, currently considering removing it completely. I don’t think I could delete my Twitter account as it’s where the majority of my readers are but if I share links still then I should have my bases covered.

So I’m going to try an experiment of using Wordpress + Micro.blog to serve my social needs. You’ll still see links posted on Twitter but I’m not planning on spending much time on there at all. I’ll also look at enabling comments on my blog.

Here goes another one of my little experiments.

Source: TechCrunch

So it begins, now the founders of Instagram are out for this very reason the slow decline of Instagram begins. Having dropped Facebook and limited my time on Twitter I started to use Instagram again. I’ll be back to using my blog as my social share it looks like given this news.

Wow, my iPhone has suddenly gotten full of social networking apps. I’m struggling a bit to keep up to be honest. Here’s what I’m currently doing.

• Facebook: no active account
• Instagram: no account at all
• Twitter: used for sharing my posts, replying to tweets and checking engagement
• Mastodon: Starting to replace Twitter as my day to day, what's happening in my world
• Micro.blog: Linked to my blog, potentially replaces Mastodon but I'm still experimenting

Phew…

After reading some of the threads related to #breakingmytwitter it has just reinforced my decision to leave.

Who knows if I’ll be back but at least I have 30 days to give Mastodon a good go and get some headspace back from the toxicity of Twitter.

And it’s back.

Hopefully not down for too long given the increase in switchers from Twitter. It’ll need to show it can handle the traffic or fall by the wayside. Unfortunately people don’t have a lot of patience.

I need a break, in Twitter’s latest escapade of supporting fake news and encouraging arguments on its platform it’s pretty obvious it’s not good for your mental health. I can no longer add content to its platform.

I’m not deleting my account just in case someone else is brought in to run the company but I’m done for now.

This post will be shared but I’m not even sure I want to add links to my posts anymore.

Once I know what I’m doing I’ll share where we can stay in touch.

I deleted my Instagram account a while ago but in the last couple of months I missed seeing some of the design accounts I followed. My username became available again so I signed up again.

It took a couple of months but I decided to remove my account again. I don’t want to feed facebook data, the search screen is full of inappropriate content and I was getting no value from seeing ads upon ads.

Luckily Instagram has an easy link you can use to do this - here you go.

You’ve probably read by now that Twitter is introducing new API’s that result in third party apps (like my favourite Tweetbot) losing functionality and being charged to effectively keep their customer base using their apps.

This is another move that is slowly but surely meant to see the end of all third party apps and I for one will end up using Twitter less.

I can see that Twitter want to drive people to their own app where they can serve you ads and monitor you more effectively but they have to realise there is a core influential set of users that will stop using the service.

I have two main problems

• I hate the official Twitter app. It's serving ads, too much visual clutter and muting is less intuitive
• I stream my timeline. In Tweetbot I stream my timeline and pin them to the top of my screen so I can see tweets come in real-time. It's how I keep up with what's going on (that's important to me). I stopped reading mainstream news a long time ago and Twitter wants to show me as much as possible

We are a few months away before this comes into play so maybe Twitter will do something but I’m not holding my breath.

Twitter seems incapable of acting in a way that gives me confidence that they actually care about their user base. I’m not going to get political in my blog but their inability to act on certain accounts has me not wanting to benefit their platform with my content.

Don’t get me wrong, I do get benefits and enjoy interacting with my community but enough is enough.

The problem for me is that the negative side of Twitter seems to be bubbling up to the top, I’m trying to be more optimistic in 2018 and Twitter isn’t going to help me fulfil my goal.

I’ll still be on for sharing posts and managing comments but for now I’m taking a step back, deleting the apps from my devices and seeing how I get on without checking it constantly.

Be safe out there.