The Twitter Following Purge: Why I Did It

The Twitter Following Purge: Why I Did It
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Let me start by saying that this article is by no means some “holier than thou” iteration. As a #Millennial I am always curious as to how social media is affecting my life and worldview. One of the apps that is at the center just happens to be Twitter. Amongst my circle of friends you would get a mixed reaction in terms of how many of us use and enjoy Twitter. Some prefer the interactions on Instagram, others wish to only be on Snapchat, and then there are a few who perceive Facebook to be their only source for social media interactions. A melting pot of opinions if you will.

But for me I have always been about Twitter and so have nearly 328 million others. I’ve been around on the site since December of 2008, a whopping nine years! Since that time I have grown, obviously, and my ideas have shifted along with my interests. The people and companies I was interested in back when I was fifteen years old are not the same one’s I am interested in at twenty-four years old. So, with this almost ten year investment in Twitter what happens if I take a close look at who I am following? What happens if I narrow down the number significantly?

Michail Sapiton for Unsplash

I’ll be honest and say that, like many, the time of both pre- and post- election on Twitter has been incredibly bitter and disgusting. I have read endless twitter replies to people who spark conversations about the Trump administration. I have gone to countless #MAGA Twitter accounts to read the vile hatred that they share and same for the countless anti-#MAGA accounts. There is vitriol and derision being flung around like no other on this site daily. It is a bottomless pit of opinions, bickering, name-calling akin to middle school drama fighting. All this to say that at some point I decided I wanted to open my worldview and follow accounts that provided differing thoughts on similar topics. I reasoned that by doing this I wasn’t limiting myself to one view on any given topic and was doing my research. Unfortunately my reasoning lost and I found myself scrolling through my following list on Twitter wondering how I had managed to follow nearly 1,060 people.

So, I purged.

As a Type A, organized individual I bargained with myself for having some sort of system to this purge. I decided to unfollow all news outlets except for two—The Atlantic and The Seattle Times won this contest— hoping that this would help with some of the negativity I was viewing. Then as I kept scrolling I realized my following list was split into specific categories: authors, athletes (mostly cycling and soccer!), celebrities, musicians, and politicians. So, I reasoned that I should get as close to a complete purge as possible. Even more I decided that the unfollowing should be narrowed down to the tweets themselves. Most of these individuals are not overly rude about what they say, but others had gotten way too negative. So, any individual who I felt was negative I unfollowed. With this goal I unfollowed all authors, all athletes except for a handful, all celebrities, all musicians, and all politicians.

What I was left with was 428 individuals. Thus, as the math follows, I unfollowed 632 people.

It has been the best decision I have made. I still utilize the Explore option on Twitter to stay up-to-date on the news, but overall I spend less time on Twitter— which is healthy at my obsession level—and I am spending more time apart from my phone as a result. Plus, less negativity makes for a happier individual. It’s amazing to notice how much social media affects our brains. I learned a lesson through this and maybe, just maybe, this is something you feel inspired to do.

Go forth and purge.

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