Quitting Twitter (Hopefully for good)

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Greetings, dear Hivers

I have not checked my Twitter account in two days now and I feel good so far, a bit anxious, but well.

I have started a "detox" process that will start by canceling the excessive self-bombardment of bad/stressful news/arguments I had been subjecting myself to. Twitter played a big role in that toxic intake and I think it is time to put it on hold. If it works, I may be closing my Twitter account for good.

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Even though Twitter is one of the most important social media outlets in terms of number of users, types of interactions, and relevance for personal and professional purposes, I think that it must also be the worst when it comes to confrontation, fake news, harassment, and political persecution.

I am a very temperamental person. I do my best to be civil in my daily interactions, but living in Venezuela that kind of restrain can be counter productive to your physical health (my kidnesy have been giving me red alerts for some days now). Sooner or later you end up blowing up. For any Venezuelan, a virtual life on a social media like Twitter can be a very dangerous complement to an already stressful real life.

I can't stand injustice and evil and there is a lot of that in social media in the form of trolls, bots, and annonimous accounts. There are also government operatives fishing for "traitors," "hate instigators," and "terrorists". Even though Twitter has alleged policies to control those, one of the most frustrating issues in that platform is precisely the lack of consistency in the measures taken on problematic accounts.

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Even though Twitter (or any other social media platform for that matter) should not be blamed for whatever issues one may be going through, in my particular case, I want to take a break, a long one. For my mental health, for the sake of my family (who is tired of my overemphasizing the news, the global mess, the negativity around us), and to explore a more possitive self burried somewhere under years of self-inflicted punishment, I need to make better use of my time.

I know that Hive has been quite involved in twitter dynamics as a way of promoting the platform (in fact Hive was the reason I became active on Twitter), but I'm afraid it is very difficult to have a feed of only Hivers (which in any case would be the ideal thing for me; one thing I may try to do to keep the account active and put to a good use). The temptation to respond to a twit by public figures, such as presidents or ministers; religious figures, like the Pope; celebrities, or just people with certain media notoriety but zero common sense or humanity in them, is too big.

Twitter is addictive for all the wrong reasons and I do not need that in my life now. Unfortunatelly, in Venezuela with all the sensorship issues, we have lost most information channels and Twitter somehow provides plenty of sources of information. But, again, in this fake news era, the more information the more uncertainty. So, I'm going for zero information if need be (at least for a while).

I plan to become more active on Hive and hopefully change the tone of my posts, which have grown increasingly pesimistic and bleak. More importantly, I plan to become more active living and sharing with my loved ones regardless of how pointless things look around. Hopefully a change of habits will make things around look more promising. That's the plan for now.

Thanks for stopping by. Stay safe and healthy.

Originally posted here: https://hive.blog/hive-196233/@hlezama/quitting-twitter-hopefully-for-good