Hello and happy new year everyone! I know this year haven't been... the same, with the pandemic and all. I'm not going to say it's bad, or it's good, but it's... definitely bad. What am I trying to say? I'm not cut out for introduction like this.
Anyway. Here I am start writing again not because of a new year's resolution or anything like that, but because of a blog post by one of my twitter following (speaking of which, this is such an obscure term since you can't even define 'following' without some context of what twitter is, and saying that he's a 'friend' could be an overstatement because our ties are not mutual, I follow his account and know of him through his posts but he doesn't even follow me or know about my existence so yeah). I followed this guy because of our (previously) mutual interests in the MCR fandom (whoa such a long time ago).
There was a phase in my twitter account, where all I use to decide whom to follow was through their identities as a fan of whatever it is I obsessed back then. So I followed people who liked the same bands, TV shows or anime fandom as I did. And that brought upon a strange phenomenon, because they eventually grew out of that fanbase-ridden-identity phase and their online presence gradually changed from something akin to @-MCR_man into @[RealName], with posts that initially were about our mutually favorite bands becoming more of their personal views and daily experiences.
During this 'transition' period, of course there were 'selections', since probably their gradually changed online persona doesn't match my liking. Maybe they were a bit too vocal in their obscure opinion, maybe they bring too much negativity, or maybe they retweet about BTS a little too many times (hey it happens). So some had to go away, but some stayed. The stayed ones, weirdly, I developed what the scholars in social science called 'weak ties'. In essence, I have come to know these people by sidling in that small gateway of 'previously-liking-the-same-thing' and ended up knowing their education background, what they're doing for a living now, their other hobbies, their other favorite kinds of music, their other social media, and their blogs. Sometimes I get invested in their opinions, I look forward to their writing, I get curious of their current interests, and so on. But to say that they are my friends? I don't know, they might feel a bit weird since they don't even know me.
Anyway. I got sidetracked again. I started writing because of this post. How browsing too much twitter is feeding into the 'reactive' part of the brain and distract us from actual writing. The micro-blogging nature of this social media makes the flow of information so quick that it traps us into the 'fear of missing out', and that we hardly think logically to comprehend the vast information. So I'm not here to preach the 'danger of social media' or to summarize that entire blog post, I just want to say that he makes a good point, at least for me.
As a (formerly frequent) blogger, and self-proclaimed 'writer', of course it's a problem when I suddenly stop being excited or committed to writing, whether it's for recreational purpose, cathartic output, or a form of how I make my living. I admit, I do browse twitter a little too much nowadays, just to avoid the heavy burden of thinking (even the trivial ones), I tweet in hopes for any interaction from my friends, and scroll endlessly just for that tiny chance that 'something interesting might appear on timeline that I can react on it'. I've become something like an addict. And that's a problem.
I've abandoned the thought of writing for God knows how long. I've given up on writing as a catharsis because I never knew what to write anymore. I don't know what are my thoughts anymore. I don't know who I am, and what I'm trying to express.
This difficulty of getting myself in the headspace to write is also a strong contributor to my addiction towards Twitter. If I were to sit in front of the laptop screen for two hours to write something of substance - three pages of fiction, academic paper, anything, really - I would spend most of the time scrolling twitter without realizing it. This gives me a false sense of productivity, because I would feel like I'm attempting to focus but I mostly just divert my focus because brainstorming is too hard.
Of course I'm not saying that Twitter did all this, I'm merely proposing that Twitter is a symptom of something far more deep-rooted in me. The longing of instant gratification. The avoidance of thinking. The fear of missing out. I'm working out what the actual disease is, but knowing the symptom, I should probably try to minimize the chance of the symptom turning into something more fatal, right?
Anyway. That was a long-arse rambling about me justifying my effort to make 2021 a Twitter-less custom. I'm still figuring out whether I want to prioritize this year to be a 'blog-more' period or 'endless-scrolling-less' period. Hopefully both.
Thank you for reading and hope you all have a wonderful year ahead!
Cheers. T.
