11/2/2023 0 Comments Dream twitter postWhat I’m trying to tell you is: I couldn’t. Just close your account, you’re thinking. If you don’t have Twitter, or if you’re a casual user, this saga must seem absurd. He was more than willing to change my password and not tell me what it was for 28 days. He is not on any social media, admires the work of the technology ethicist Tristan Harris, and is an all-around helpful and generous person. You can’t fight an addiction alone, so I engaged the assistance of one of my sons, Patrick. It was to be a battle of wills between one aging, chemo-addled brain and the daisy-fresh minds of the world’s most talented coders, ultimate-Frisbee players, and ruthless businessmen. Could I kick the addiction without having to reach what alcoholics refer to as rock bottom? Could I save myself before the inevitable catastrophe? There were days when I stared at the screen thinking, It’s only a matter of time. My employer had given up and adopted a sort of “It’s your funeral” approach. She would either shape them into imperishable personal essays or allow them to float past her and return to the place from which they came.įor a few years now, my family’s attitude toward my habit has been-depending on whom you asked-concerned, grossed out, or disappointed. But would she ever take to Twitter to inscribe these frustrations onto the ticker tape of the infinite? Of course not. Surely Joan Didion has confronted her share of aggravations (cucumber slices not adhering to tea sandwiches Lynn Nesbit calling during NewsHour latest Celine sunnies too big for tiny, exquisite face). Come to Burma? Please?ġ0 p.m.: Can’t get that damn elephant out of my mind. Noon: Lunch was a tin of kippers sent by Thanks, Mimsy! Felt like we were at the same table. What the Hell can I do about it? I will go take a look. George Orwell on Twitter? I doubt it.Ħ a.m.: An Elephant is rampaging through the bazaar. God knows my heroes wouldn’t have gone down this road. How many people have lost their jobs over ill-considered tweets? How can a wry observation, unexamined and fired off during an adrenaline high, possibly be worth the risk? It’s madness. The simplest definition of an addiction is a habit that you can’t quit, even though it poses obvious danger. What pours out is an ungodly sluice of high-minded opinions, sharp rebukes, jokes, transactional compliments, and mundane bulletins from my private life (to the extent that I have one anymore). Put it out there, post it, see how it does. Once the line is formed, why not put it out there? Twitter is a red light, blinking, blinking, blinking, destroying my ability for private thought, sucking up all my talent and wit. Every thought, every experience, seems to be reducible to this haiku, and my mind is instantly engaged by the challenge of concision. But now a corporation that operates against my best interests has me thinking in 280 characters. Twenty years of journalism taught me to hit a word count almost without checking the numbers at the bottom of the screen. I know I’m an addict because Twitter hacked itself so deep into my circuitry that it interrupted the very formation of my thoughts. The indignity of it! Couldn’t I have gone out on a champagne bender or bet the house on a poker game, or even clogged my heart with so much gelato and fried chicken that the life force was squeezed out of me midway through a slice of cheesecake? Why did it have to be this common, embarrassing habit that just about everyone on Earth knows is a scourge?
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