I’m Quitting Twitter! (Temporarily…)

That’s it! I’m doing it! I’m quitting Twitter!

…for a week, anyway. At least initially.

This may not sound like a big deal, but when you consider the fact that I’ve checked Twitter almost every single day since the 9th July 2008, the situation becomes a little more apparent. Add in the fact that that date was more than half my life ago – when I exactly thirteen years and one month old, to be exact – and suddenly it should sound reasonable to say I’m questioning the impact it’s had on my entire life.

The thing is, I’m not doing this in reaction to anything. I’ve “quit” Twitter a couple times before in some of my lowest, angriest moments, but I’ve always come crawling back the next day. And whilst it’s common to refer to Twitter as a cesspit of doom nowadays, I actually have a lot of positive opinions about it. There are cute animal photos and funny jokes. I enjoy using it to keep up with people I know and people I admire. It’s been a prominent source of education from viewpoints I may not have discovered in my personal life otherwise. It’s these things which make the decision to step away all that much more difficult.

But the concerns here are just as numerous. Checking Twitter has been an impulse for years of my life now. According to the usage data on my phone, I open Twitter between 50 to 65 times a day. I also spend about an hour a day looking at it, which isn’t so bad but could certainly be time spent doing something else, like enjoying a show or some comics or reading a book.

I think the biggest impact Twitter has had on my life these past 14 years has been in how I share thoughts and opinions. Without Twitter, how many passing thoughts would I have shared in a message to a friend instead of a tweet? Might my relationships be stronger for doing so? It’s even more concerning when you consider that a majority of my tweets don’t get a single interaction. I’m not a voice in a community, I’m literally just voicing my thoughts to myself in public. And while I have no qualms about doing so, I do have other platforms to do so in more creative ways.

I wonder… have you ever had that moment where your phone runs out of charge, and for the moment between plugging it in and it coming back online, you felt disconnected and alone? That’s probably not healthy, right? I wonder if that feeling is as universal as I thought. And I wonder if I’m going to feel that way when I stop using Twitter. I plan on using my reclaimed time in constructive ways; I’m sure I’ll feel lost at first, instinctually reaching toward that app or bookmark before remembering I’ve removed it, and should spend my time elsewise. But perhaps, in time, that instinct will fade away, replaced with a stronger presence in my day to day, or more frequent messages with friends.

I’ll probably write another post on this in a week, or if I do decide to wait longer, some later date. In the meantime, I’ll continue to talk about all the stuff I love talking about on my weekly YouTube series, in livestreams, and perhaps in more blog posts right here.

To Be A Time Traveller…

I recently found myself staring at this picture of my home city from the 1950’s and – not for the first time – being absolutely fascinated by history, place, and the passage of time.

Plymouth’s Royal Parade in the 1950s.

Specifically, this photograph is interesting to me because of just how high quality it is. I don’t know if it’s been artificially touched up or if somebody just had a cracking good camera, but it’s so high quality that it feels all the more relatable. I know that road, but the cars on it are different. I know those buildings, but the shops inside have changed. I know those trees, but they’re massive great things in comparison. I’ve sat on the bench where the man in the hat is sat. A man seventy years removed from this very moment, long since dead and buried. And that’s fascinating.

If I had a time machine – oh, if I had a time machine. I won’t bore you with tales of where I’d go, but 1950s Plymouth would be one of the earlier stops. I can just imagine how surreal it’d be to explore the city before my father was born, before anyone in my family stepped foot in the city, before the people in my life existed. I know exactly which streets I’d visit. I know exactly where I’d go.

One of the main things I’d do is just listen. Find a spot, people-watch, catch snippets of passing conversation. The day-to-day of the average person in the 1950s isn’t exactly long-lost lore, but I’d be interested in all the little things you don’t think about, the unexpected tidbits that catch you off-guard and remind you that certain shops used to exist, certain people were still around, and of course, there would be plenty popular topics of conversation that people just don’t consider anymore, things that weren’t important enough to be noted in history but were a common talking point at the time.

I am, of course, romanticising things somewhat. Day-to-day life in the 1950s must have felt as unspectacular to someone living their life then as the 2020s do to us now. But maybe there will be people in the 2090s rifling through old photos and videos from the 2020s, perhaps not eager to come and visit due to our… current issues, but feeling their own bout of nostalgia for a time which they never saw for themselves.

The thing that gets me, looking at all those people walking down past the shops, is the fact that history isn’t just the division of separate eras or decades – it’s a direct line from A to B. I like to imagine myself as a fly on the wall, albeit one with an exceptionally long lifespan and an attention span far greater than one I have now. Imagine sitting on that wall and watching people arrive for work, or meetups with friends, coming and going day-by-day as the world ever so slightly, imperceptibly changes around them. We already know, from our perspective, the differences the years brought – some good, some bad – and we categorise them by decade or by technological advancement. But every single day, the invisible web of cause and effect changes infinitesimally, and nothing is ever the same as it was the moments before.

My point is that ultimately, the Royal Parade in that picture and the Royal Parade I know are the same place. (I mean, give our take the thousands of lightyears hurtling through space in the meantime – we’re talking relative place, right? No smart-arses in the comments!) It’s tempting to see history only through the lens of the major events and the stereotypical aesthetics we associate with certain decades, but this picture really brought it home for me that the past is so much closer than we tend to think. The houses we’ve lived in for half our lives have been lived in by multiple families in the past. The streets we live on have seen countless stories unfold throughout the years. And given everything going on in our lives on a day-to-day basis, it’s so easy to forget that, and assume that the present is something that’s been the state of the world forever. Not when you think about it for more than half a second, obviously, but just passively – what’s now just is.

Lately, I’ve realised just how much old media I’ve been consuming. I’m reading Amazing Spider-Man from its 1960’s origins, and watching Classic Doctor Who from a similar starting point. Since subscribing to Britbox for that, I’ve also found myself weirdly intrigued by the smattering of old EastEnders episodes they have available. It’s all due to the same fascination I have with that picture at the top of the blog post. I’ve always been fascinated with ancient history, but it’s only in the last few years that recent history has really grabbed my attention. Not the World Wars or the politics, or anything like that – but the mundane, every-day history of the average life.