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[metaphortunate]

Twitter is like a machine for keeping me emotionally confused. It's like reading the following paragraph, but all day for 5 minutes at a time:

Oh god, my friend has cancer. The world is more peaceful than it has ever been in history. Here is something so offensive or insulting that it actually hurts to read, retweeted by a friend who wants to expose the fact that people say that sort of thing. Here is a picture of a cat riding a Roomba! More people are enslaved right now than ever before in history. My friend who has been trying to have a baby for ages is pregnant! Yay! The California drought is reaching epic proportions. My other friend sold one of her short stories! Another state is making a well-funded and well-organized effort to take away rights from women, gay people, trans people, and/or ethnic minorities. There is some jewelry for sale to benefit another sick person in the community who has no health insurance. My friend who was sick is better! A different country is being really brutal to their refugees, that sounds horrible. Here is a picture of my one friend's new dress. That's pretty cute, she looks great. Income inequality in the U.S. is steadily rising with no end in sight. Aw, my friends are taking a trip together and talking about it. Here's a really funny Night Vale joke. Here's an article about how fucked education in the U.S. is. Now a funny, sweet toddler story from a comrade-in-parenting. Now a story about animal abuse. Now a rec for some hot fanfic. Now a fun hashtag game with my friends. Now a surprisingly emotionally harrowing cartoon about sexism in comics.


I love keeping up with my friends, but I never know how the fuck to feel.

Comments

[nonethefewer]

This is why I will use Twitter, and even peruse it from time to time, but can never ever keep up with it. I have enough troubles with my own emotions without playing tilt-a-whirl with 'em.

[liviapenn]

This is why I turn off retweets on people who retweet more than a certain number of tragedies/outrages/etcetera. I'm sure I miss some cool stuff but... if I want news, I'll go to an actual news site.

[norah]

AYEP. I can't take the misery machine.

[metaphortunate]

I was SO HAPPY when they implemented mute retweets.

[snarp]

Tumblr isn't doing the same thing to you? Clearly you are not following enough people.

I've blacklisted a lot of phrases there in order to preserve the tattered remains of my mental health.

[metaphortunate]

yes, but...Tumblr, like LJ/DW is...slower somehow? Each post is more like a graf of its own. Easier to take a moment to focus on the Disney gifset or the cosplayer or the garden porn or what have you.

[laurashapiro]

To me, that sounds positively refreshing. My feed is 93% outrage. I could use some of the variety you're experiencing!

But social media does tend to give me whiplash like that.

[metaphortunate]

I muted RTs from a number of people and am much happier for it!

[laurashapiro]

Oooh, I didn't know about muting! Off to investigate...

[kore]

....wow, I had NO idea I could mute retweets, and I'm going to try that and see if it makes Twitter more bearable, because there are people I adore on Twitter who insist on RTing every awful thing ever and I just can't take it.

[jesse_the_k]

You have expressed exactly why I can't Twitter, and I didn't even know why. I created my user account in 2008, but more than two hours and my digestive system shuts down while my migraine manufactory goes into over drive! I can point people to this open post when they ask why I'm not on Twitter (except for arranging meals at cons).