Twitter’s Dumb, So Why Do We Still Use It?

Social media is, in every possible sense of the word, a cesspool.

Here we have this wide array of websites where everyone gives up a large amount of personal information so that we have a place to post pictures of ourselves we pretend we didn’t plan to take and keep up with people we haven’t seen since our high school graduations. This way, you find out that some girl you played soccer with in the fourth grade is a mom now, and everyone you know is basically living the same life that you live. You learn your 8th grade English teacher’s political ideology, and you follow your favorite social media stars to read their angry tweets in response to the grapefruit in chief.

I can’t write this piece as anyone other than someone who is massively guilty of all of this. I use my Facebook to keep up with people I haven’t seen since the eighth grade, I DM my high school best friend Instagram posts that make for the best gossip fuel, and my Snapchat score is kind of embarrassingly high–I would share, but even looking at it in the app makes me shudder. It’s gross. This all means that I am, of course, a horrendous offender on the biggest social media cesspool of them all: Twitter.

Twitter is probably the worst thing to happen to the internet since free porn, so why do we still use it?

There is no easier place to express your short and not-so-well intentioned thoughts than Twitter, with its recently expanded 280 characters and the ability to post photos and videos, which can all be strung together into threads. It’s a cute kitschy place for news to break and for fans to have surprisingly easy access to their favorite celebrities (one of my proudest moments as an eighth grader was a tweet response I received from He’s Just Not That Into You star Ginnifer Goodwin).

It’s the social media where Silicon Valley corporate suits constantly drag their feet when it comes to banning white nationalists, racists, and, in recent months, literal Nazis, all in the name of free speech – or those dreaded terms of service. Twitter is where you learn that your friends might be casually racist or that they are really big fans of Amy Adams’ filmography.

That particular Amy Adams dig was directed at myself. I am literally always on brand. I don’t know how many of you saw Arrival, but she was robbed.

It’s where we engage in petulant and short conversation about our beliefs with a wide array of audiences. Whether they be just the people we know directly, or a troll with an American flag for a profile photo, seven followers, and a deep-seeded need to disagree with anything a woman says. It’s the social media where we all try really hard to say something funny, only to find out that our jokes really aren’t all that original.

I will, however, stand behind this tweet to this day. This is probably one of the funnier things I have ever said.

There are so few nice things that I, who spent five hours and seven minutes on the mobile app version last week alone, have to say about Twitter. It’s where I go for updates on sporting events like I don’t already have five different apps for that. It’s where I post my shitty opinions about movies so that people think I’m cool. I read a lot of news headlines that I don’t click on—and another hell of a lot that I do click on—and often use that as an excuse not to read a newspaper in the morning. I engage with any troll that appears in my mentions, disagreeing with me on anything from politics—which I loudly express on this cowardly social platform—to pop culture. However, I know exactly why I stay on the garbage social media site where I will, without a doubt, post a link to this article when it goes to publication.

While you’re at it, read that piece too. The link is on my Twitter account.

I really, really love when people like my tweets, and I have a strange and not exactly unfounded suspicion that a lot of people feel the same way.

There is a small sense of comradery that washes over my skin and through my brain when I see that red balloon notification on my Twitter app. Since Twitter is a place where we express both frivolous and serious thought, seeing that someone “likes” something that I said means a lot in a way that I really wish it didn’t.

If I didn’t think that there were people who looked forward to reading what stupid thing I might have to say waking up on a Tuesday morning after a weird dream, or when I’ve gone to see a new movie when my Friday classes are cancelled – then I would delete the app in a heartbeat. Tweeting is just posting a selfie, except it’s whatever pops into your brain instead of a snapshot of yourself. The validation that Twitter promises is, without a doubt, make-or-break for most people.

25 “Likes.” I felt pretty good that day. I won’t even lie. Also, don’t dress up as that dude next year either. Thanks.

It’s sort of silly, really. There are plenty of ways for us to express our thoughts, especially the longer and more carefully crafted ones, in this age of technology. Yet, so many of us turn to those 240 characters, listening to the whoosh of a sending tweet when we finally get the thought out, scanning carefully afterward, fingers crossed that there’s no typo.

We wait, sometimes not so patiently, for that little bird sound effect to ring through our cell phone speaker, letting us know that someone engaged with our little idea. We wait to be welcomed into each other’s minds through 240 characters.

I don’t have room to advise you, as I know that I won’t exactly be deleting my Twitter account any time soon. There’s little that comes to mind, so I’ll leave you with things I probably would have tweeted instead: Go outside to tweet once in a while. The sunlight will be good for your skin. Don’t tweet and drive. Recognize this Twitter thing for what it is-a place for advertisers to “subtly” attract your attention while you rattle on about something that happened at your Thanksgiving dinner table. Oh, and limit tweets about media to one small thread at the most. Be concise. Nobody wants to read your live tweet session of The Princess Switch.