Twitter is a tool. It can be made a better or worse tool by Elon Musk and his team. But, as with all tools, the predominant factor for whether it is used for good or ill is the user.
If we use Twitter for bickering, seething, doomscrolling, and distraction, that’s on us. We are not helpless victims of the platform’s design.
We can find ways to use Twitter constructively: to learn from and teach each other, to become better thinkers and communicators.
We can change our settings and reform our habits to help ourselves to use it in those ways.
We can follow content creators who bring out the best in us and unfollow accounts that tempt us to indulge our bitterness and wrath.
We can use Twitter as a forum for developing, sharing, and spreading our ideas instead of an arena for vainly seeking to inflict psychic discomfort on those who don’t yet agree with our ideas.
We need to stop blaming corporations and their products for our own lack of self-discipline.
The most powerful way to make Twitter a less toxic platform is to detoxify our own use of it.
Originally published as a Twitter thread:
Love it! Social media is like returning to the social structure of high school. You choose the group you find interesting, follow them or unfollow them if you find them to be jerks. In the end you choose who you want to associate with. A leader can only lead if they have followers.