Nobody on Twitter Will Read This

the demon bird app has made everyone illiterate

As a consequence of having been permanently banned (since overturned) while simply leaving my Twitter account dormant, I linked Twitter to this Substack so that new posts would be tweeted, thus making sure the account wouldn’t be considered “inactive.” I also scheduled some tweets linking to old posts. Each and every scheduled tweet says, “Scheduled tweet; I am NOT back on Twitter, please see pinned thread.”

The scheduled tweets were a type of control in my experiment to see how, and to what extent, Twitter would drive traffic to old posts. What could I learn?

I learned something, all right—primarily, that Twitter has done more than cause worsening psychological fragmentation and cultivate a dangerous emotional-whiplash-as-norm in its users.

Twitter has absolutely destroyed the ability to read.

I woke up wide effing awake in the middle of the night and read my Twitter notifications over an early breakfast.

This is how hard I tried to communicate that I wasn’t back on Twitter:

1. A pinned thread explaining how and why I’m not back on Twitter.

2. Changing my display name to say “please see pinned thread.”

3. Editing the bio to indicate that I’m not on Twitter.

4. The words, “I’m NOT back on Twitter” in every scheduled tweet.

My notifications are almost entirely people expressing joy that I’m back on Twitter.

Oh, but it gets better.

One of the old posts I linked to was called “On Agnostic Performing.” It’s about how I learned to read, and pretend that I believed in, Tarot cards as a way of making money.

Performing. Defined by the dictionary “present (a form of entertainment) to an audience.”

The part of that post that is not behind the paywall includes the following (emphasis added):

Despite the big clue in the title and the word “pretending” in the passage that was available to anyone capable of reading, the response to that tweet includes a condescending expression of disappointment in my “irrationality” because the tweeter somehow thinks that I believe in divination despite not believing in God.

Note to self: never assume that anyone has actually read a thing, just because they’ve passed their eyes over it and responded to it.

If I sound a little stunned, it’s because I am.

I knew, and have written at length, about how Twitter is devastating for psychological and emotional health, and human relationships.

I really didn’t know it was destroying basic literacy, too.

I think Twitter has probably destroyed literacy mostly by destroying focus. It may not be that people can’t read anymore; it may simply be that Twitter has killed focus to the point that 280 characters is simply too long. Apparently, nobody can get to the end of 280 characters, so they miss the “I’m NOT back on Twitter” part. Likewise, “(see pinned tweet please)” beside my name is an extra four words, leading to an extra tweet.

That’s just too much. Four words, and then an extra tweet? Who do I think I am, writing things that other people’s eyes will pass over and imagining they’ll actually read them and respond to what I said?

Who do I think other people are, adults capable of reading and understanding language?

Think about that, folks. We live in a world with complex and difficult challenges, and we have so entirely destroyed our ability to focus that 280 characters is too long for getting across simple, easy-to-understand information.

We are in so much trouble.

My own ability to focus is not nearly as strong as I want it to be. It’s recently become clear to me how far I still have to go to regain my ability to do one thing at a time, without distraction. This debacle has made me redouble my efforts to heal my attention span. I will get my focus back. I will become someone who is as unlikely as humanly possible to miss the glaringly obvious, especially when someone has tried very, very hard to get it across, clearly and in multiple ways.

This is what modern life, of which I regard Twitter as the worst possible example, has done to us.

I refuse to participate in this degrading mockery of being human.

The old ethics class debate about whether or not it would be moral to kill baby Hitler in his crib should be replaced.

The new question should be, “What if a time machine allowed you to go back in time and kill Jack Dorsey before he invents Twitter?”

It is so much worse than I thought it was.

Wow. Just, wow.

I will continue to have new posts tweeted automatically, but once the presently scheduled tweets are done I’m not going to schedule anymore.

Even at this much remove, Twitter is just too depressing.

Housekeeping: Comments are open for paid subscribers. Email hollymathnerd at gmail if you want to participate but can’t afford a paid subscription. I’m no longer active on any social media. New posts are announced via a tweet but I’m not actively participating on Twitter. Thank you!