My friend Alan Jacobs writes that Twitter has become unpleasant. He quotes many "especially thoughtful and constructive users" (and Marco Arment) to that effect.
It's not clear, exactly, what the problem is. But, mainly, it seems to be about bad interactions that happen on the service.
I don't want to say that these people are "wrong" because it seems pretty meaningless to me in this context (your subjective experience of Twitter isn't wrong or right), but I do want to say that my experience is nothing like what the post describes. If anything, it's gotten more pleasant over the years. And my reaction to the post was honest befuddlement.
I just may be one of the most active tweeters on the planet. I hang out all day. And I always have an enjoyable and pleasurable experience. Most of the conversations I have are enlightening, most everything I see is good, and so on.
Why might that be? Some haphazard suggestions:
Thicker skin. This is the obvious one. I don't mind internet hecklers. Sometimes, I even enjoy them. I think that does play a role, but I don't think it's the whole thing, because it's not like I get heckled all day and don't mind it. It's that I rarely get heckled. And this even though I have thousands of followers and I write on prominent venues like Forbes about controversial topics like politics. (Interestingly, after my latest and controversial piece on Russia and Ukraine, there was a lot more Godwin's Law-type crap on my public Facebook Page than on Twitter.) I'm not saying I never get a-holes, but I'm sure that on average it's less than one encounter per day which, given that I'm hanging out on Twitter all day, I view as a very nice score. The people Alan cites feel like the amount is much higher. Do I project an anti-heckler force field? (By the way, all the people involved here so far are men. I'm sure women's perspectives would be different.)
I do think that I enjoy picking fights and having fights more (a lot more) than Alan, and that's certainly a thing that Twitter rewards. But again, even when I go looking for them, I don't find many.
Easier with the block button. It's interesting how social stigmas pop up around technical features. Everyone feels that "blocking" is a big deal. For me, it's not. If I feel like you're an idiot or my blood pressure is in danger of elevating, I block you without remorse. I have every right to want to not have interactions with you through Twitter. You don't have a right to invade my mentions column.
Curating follows. One of Alan's quotees writes "The common way to refute my complaint is to say that I’m following the wrong people. I think I’m following the right people, I’m just seeing the worst side of them while they’re stuck in an inhospitable environment. It’s exasperating to be stuck in a stream." Well, with all due respect, this person might be following the wrong people, because I follow over a thousand people and I don't relate to this experience at all. Really--I don't get it.
An incidental aspect would be that maybe my experience has improved as I've gone from following political people to following religious people. Just the other day, an Evangelical blogger and I (a Catholic) got to talking about Papal primacy. Because I was on a train and bored I fired off a volley of apologetic and somewhat hostile tweets. The other guy responded with such grace and kindness that I was completely disarmed. I'm guessing that happens less on Politics Twitter.
Pick your enemies. Unlike Alan, I do enjoy fighting on Twitter--but not with all comers. As I said, I'm generous with the block button. For example, I'm a conservative, and I mostly follow conservative tweeters. But, in the somewhat hackneyed interest of not living in a dreaded bubble, I do follow some progressives. But I only follow progressives I enjoy fighting with. By which I mean, "fighting" with them feels more like sparring with a friend on the boxing ring than fighting in a back alley.
I think the important thing here is to embrace your subjectivity. For example, Vox writer Matt Yglesias often drives me up the wall. By contrast, I really enjoy "sparring" with ThinkProgress writer Jeff Spross, which is almost always pleasant. And here's the important thing, I think, for peace of mind, I don't think this is because "Yglesias is a troll" and "Spross is a good guy." I view it as a totally morally neutral kink of the Universe. There are some people that some people enjoy "fighting" with and others that they don't, and it's okay.
But I do think that if you mostly follow good people and follow good etiquette you're going to be okay. I recently had a "fight" with the blogger Venkatesh Rao, whom I admire, but I thought he was really wrong on some point. He thought that I was really wrong. At some point, he stated that I just misunderstood his position. I still think he was wrong on that! But I gave him the benefit of the doubt and ended the confrontation there. That made the whole experience pleasant--like sparring, not street fighting.
If I think about it, I guess the reason why I have a good experience is a combination of (a) having a slightly higher tolerance for "crap" and "fights" (the two not being the same thing, though overlapping as in a Venn diagram) and (b) curating my feed so that I mostly have the good kind of "fights".
In the end, I think Twitter rewards philosophical Stoicism, and I may have a bit of the Stoic in me. To my wife's frequent annoyance, I just, as a matter of rule, refuse to let myself be affected by things I cannot change.
Anyway, some stray thoughts. Again, the point isn't that Alan and his friends are "wrong" and "using Twitter wrong." As I said, I am more puzzled by their experience, which doesn't map onto my own, and which has equal legitimacy as "an experience".
P.S. If you want to pick good fights, you should follow me on Twitter here.
