<div class="header-image"></div> <table class="table-header"> <thead> <tr> <th colspan="2"></th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>2024-04-28</td> <td style="text-align: right;"><a href="About.md" class="internal-link">About</a></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> # Quitting Twitter and Waking Up Leaving Twitter was difficult. But it had to be done. It's easier as I go on, but I do find myself now aimlessly scrolling on Mastodon sometimes. It's like I need something to replace the doomscrolling habit I've developed. But that only lasts for a couple of minutes now before I put down my phone. Mastodon doesn't have the same affect on me that Twitter did. On Mastodon, I generally have an idea for a post, I then craft that post, and that's all for the day. Twitter sent my brain into a back-feeding loop. It made me upset at people, and yet there was something about it that caused me to *seek out* that upset feeling. In hindsight, it's easy for me to recognise that this was happening, but I don't think I realised just how much an affect it was having on me while I was participating in it. When I look at all the endless protests, that happen in my own city, I can't help but think that social media is the culprit. These people are so caught up in that quest to be upset that they take it offline, and disrupt the lives of others. It's like they don't know what they're doing. The recent months of protest surrounding the Israeli/Palestine conflict is the perfect example. I believe people care about this issue only because it fits the running theme of victims and oppressors in social justice circles. It's the rallies against Islamophobia from a decade ago taking it's turn in the Very-Important-Thing™ cycle. But there is genuine antisemitism surrounding these protests, and this bigotry is expressed openly in the name of anti-racism. [https://news.sky.com/story/jewish-campaign-group-cancels-walk-over-safety-fears-as-met-police-chief-defends-policing-of-pro-palestinian-march-13123438](https://news.sky.com/story/jewish-campaign-group-cancels-walk-over-safety-fears-as-met-police-chief-defends-policing-of-pro-palestinian-march-13123438) [https://globalnews.ca/news/10455765/student-israel-hamas-protest-encampments-antisemitism/](https://globalnews.ca/news/10455765/student-israel-hamas-protest-encampments-antisemitism/) >[!quote] >*"The 'harassing and intimidating comments and actions' by some protesters violate the school's open expression guidelines as well as state and federal law, Jameson said, and vandalism of a statue with antisemitic graffiti was 'especially reprehensible and will be investigated as a hate crime.'"* Of course the people caught up in these very temporary "movements" will bristle at what I've just pointed out, because they can't see the forest for the trees. The vast majority of protesters you see out in the streets really don't even know what they're protesting. They learned about this conflict, which has several decades (nearly a century) of history, just a few short months ago, and what little they do know about it they learned on social media, of course, from other people who are themselves completely new to the subject. Ask any of them what's happening with the Russia/Ukraine conflict in the present moment. 2 years ago they were out demonstrating about that war too, after only just learning about it in the same fashion. But now, because the overarching Twitter plotline has moved on to The-Next-Big-Thing™, they've gone back to not knowing or caring about it at all. This is utter madness. People are being led by the marionette strings of puppeteers whose only care is keeping eyes glued to screens as long as possible. It's a global algorithmic capture, and I genuinely wonder if there shouldn't be some controls put in place legislatively, in some kind of attempt to bottle this back up. Internet addiction was a concept devised in the 90s. We don't really concern ourselves with it any longer, although we all seem to suffer from it. Ever since we could access the Internet from devices small enough to keep in our pockets, the world has not been the same, and I'm not sure it's changed for the better. >[!info] Update June 16, 2024 I've just today created another account. I'm telling myself that it's just to post updates to this blog, but we shall see. If I can't control myself there this time, I may just have to delete this one too.