This is another attempt to speak a little grace and hope into the way you think about social media, particularly Twitter. If you use Twitter instead of Facebook, you already have an advatage. Twitter doesn’t require a follow back or “friending,” and this means you can follow whoever you want. Conversely, people can follow you without you having to follow back and see everything they post.
If you are frustrated with Twitter itself, chances are some of your frustration could be allieviated by changing a couple settings: uncheck “show me the best Tweets first” and use the mute feature.
First, I don’t think many people realize that Twitter allows you to mute certain words or hashtags. This means you can filter out just about everything you dislike about social media. For example, I have #SCOTUS, #POTUS, and the word “Trump” muted. Chances are that my Twitter experience is much better than yours because of three simple mutes. Anytime there is an annoying flare up of tweets you don’t like, just add another mute word or hashtag. It takes about 10 seconds. To access the mute settings go to Settings and privacy > Privacy and safety > scroll to the bottom and you will see Blocked accounts, Muted accounts, and Muted words.
Second, the Twitter app tries to show you the tweets they think you will be most interested in based on those you interact with most. You can adjust this setting in the Twitter app, but I don’t think many people know (1) that their timeline isn’t in chronological order by default and (2) they can change it. In the Twitter app, go to Settings and privacy > Timeline and uncheck “Show me the best tweets first.” Now, if you are following a live event, your timeline won’t be interrupted with old tweets. More info on adjusting your timeline settings can be found here.
The only remaining hurdle is ads (“promoted tweets”), and to fix this problem you will have to turn to an app like Tweetbot. Tweetbot is a solid, great looking app that can do all of the above and more. Check out their website for more info.
Brian W. Davidson 