Social media - what a difference a year makes

This time last year I was in a very different place with regard to social media. Things with Twitter had reached breaking point and called for drastic action. I nuked my account and started again from scratch.

And it proved to be such a great decision. In the space of a year I have rebuilt my account to roughly the same number of followers as I had with my 9 year old account.

The difference being that I ruthlessly curated the content I saw there, and crucially the content that I interacted with. Mindful of the fact that Twitter will share my likes/retweets with others I was careful not to interact with content that others might find triggering - Brexit, Covid and other hot button issues in the UK.

Not that they aren't important, but I knew how fragile my own mental health was feeling coming out of the pandemic and that the only way I could stay on Twitter, and enjoy being there was by being strict about what I allowed into my bubble. Knitting, otters and funny cat memes are the order of the day now, and my day is far better for it.

Please note this is different to putting my head in the sand. I stay informed by reading and from trusted news sources. What I don’t need is to be sand blasted by the hose of other people's opinions and hot takes.

This time last year, my Instagram by contrast felt completely dead in the water. I felt similarly stifled but couldn't bring myself to delete my account, as anyone who has painstakingly inched over the 10k followers threshold will understand.

Instead I cut back the number of accounts I followed to almost zero - and started again. Just following those whose content either uplifted, inspired or entertained me. Drastic yes, but my goodness it was like a breath of fresh air.

Side note though - it did earn me a shadow ban for a few weeks as I deleted more follows per day than the algorithm was happy with, so I’m not sure I can entirely recommend it as a course of action.

As we moved into 2023 though, things started to feel different yet again. The whole twitter atmosphere has undoubtedly changed as a result of the site’s new owner and a lot of people have either left or are interacting far less on their accounts.

Instagram by contrast feels a lot more vibrant - the Reels are obviously here to stay and maybe, who knows I’m actually starting to like them a little bit. It feels as though people are allowing themselves to relax and let go of the quest for Instagram flatlay perfection a little bit, and embrace the fun and more spontaneous side of the platform again. Instagram have also responded (finally) to concerns about account security and have introduced a new system for helping people to recover hacked/locked accounts.

What will this year bring? Who knows quite frankly but change is inevitable, it always is.

Now more than ever it’s important to connect with people on more than one platform, or via email/DMs. Rumours of Twitters imminent collapse are almost certainly exaggerated but it does no harm to make sure that you are subscribed to your favourite folks’ newsletters, just in case something drastic were to happen.

I know there are a few alternatives to Twitter popping up - Mastodon and Hive being the two that I have come across - and created accounts there. But honestly, the thought of starting again from scratch on another social media platform is more than I can bear right now. I want to spend less time on social media in 2023, not more.

How about you? Have you used one of the Twitter alts, and if so what do you think of it? Do drop me a comment and let me know.

And if you’d like to make sure you stay abreast of what I’m up to please do subscribe to my weekly email. I try to share snippets from the online world that have caught my eye, what’s on my needles and general random thoughts that I might not get around to sharing anywhere else.

And my other online hangouts are:

Twitter - as EverydayKnitter

Instagram - as LouiseTilbrookDesigns

Moving on

This week I took the rather drastic step of stepping away from my Twitter account of over 10 years and starting afresh. A drastic action certainly but it wasn’t an impulsive one. Rather it came about by a gradual process of realising that I wasn’t happy with something, and then setting about the process of working out how I could rectify it.

In doing so I came across this article by Tim Denning which perfectly summed up my attitude to Twitter and encapsulated my feelings emboddied in that tiny blue bird logo.

Over the years, off and on I have spent a lot of time on Twitter and have certainly made some great friends there. Friends that I would really miss if I were to leave the platform completely. However, of late I had found myself needing to take more breaks from the app, and of longer duration as it was really starting to affect my mental health. Partly that was due to my actions - I had followed a lot of news and politically active accounts all of whom were equally outraged at world events as I was. The problem of course was that I was struggling to process my own emotions during the past few years, and adding in other peoples anger and outrage wasn’t really helping. In addition the Twitter algorithm as we know is geared up to keep you on the app as much as possible - and outrage keeps you there a lot longer than cute photos of otters - so that’s what it shows you.

I recently took an unplanned break from Twitter which extended into a week as I found myself increasingly reluctant to log in, even though I missed catching up with pals. The answer was obvious - if something isn’t serving you or doing you good - stop it or do it differently.

For me that meant creating a new account, and setting it up with care and intention. Following those people that I wanted to keep in touch with and creating lists so that I can do that effectively without having to rely on the chaotic main feed. You can find my new account here if you want to see what I’ve been up to. My old one I’ll keep up for a little while before archiving it.

The whole process has got me thinking about other things that have changed or I have moved away from over the past few years. I ditched my Facebook group of over 20k members in favour of a much smaller but much easier to manage Mighty Networks community, and in 2020 I moved away from Ravelry. Something that previously I would have thought was unthinkable and would spell certain death for my business.

In fact, nothing drastic happened at all. I’m still carrying on writing and selling patterns, still connecting with the knitting community and friends around me. I’m just doing it on terms that serve me better. The world didn’t end just because I ditched Ravelry.

And at the end of the day I think that’s what it’s all about, and it’s taken the chaos and upheaval of the last 2 years to show me that. It’s OK to evaluate what’s going on in your life and what helps - or hinders you. And it’s OK to discard perceived wisdom or advice in favour of what suits you.

How we spend our days, is after all, how we spend our lives. And for me, that means spending my precious minutes on things that make me feel good for hours.