Life After Twitter: Ten Days In
It was on October 20, 2017, that, after 10 years, I deleted my Twitter account. I described my reasons in Goodbye, Twitter – It Was (Sort of) Fun While It Lasted which was also republished by aNewDomain.
How has life been since? Pretty good. Definitely less stressful during the day when I was accustomed to checking several times an hour. There was always some outrage based on Trump Administration (mis)behavior to fulminate about and I found myself retweeting and responding to such snippets.
I certainly don't consider myself less knowledgeable about what's going on. I just assume that sometime during the day I'll hear about the latest outrage from the various sources I regularly use while working including Google+, Facebook, Washington Post (both online and print editions), Breitbart News, AP, Reuters, and Al Jazeera. Also at night I've taken to checking in regularly to The Economist via an app on my smartphone supplied by the Alexandria Public Library. Plus, my wife watches network TV news (which I detest) and she will periodically fill me in on what's what.
Yes, I still feel terrified by the state of our country and by our declining reputation around the world. But I intend to vote on November 4 here in Virginia and, while I consider my vote secret, I'm still hoping and praying that the Republican candidate for governor convinces Trump to come and stump for him in Virginia.
One thing about Twitter that I've always been concerned about is the speed with which misinformation, partial truths, and lies are disseminated. Whatever side you are on I don't enjoy the cryptic back and forth on Twitter as people yell at each other. We need to be worrying about more profound issues in a more calm and deliberate manner. For example, what did Kelly mean by "compromise," and what do we do to make sure our children know that "states' right" means "the right to own slaves"? Screaming back and forth on Twitter about such profound and disturbing issues doesn't help.
Copyright (c) 2017 by Dennis D. McDonald. A later version of this article has been published on aNewDomain.net.
