The infinite scroll

Reading the news through the filter of social media.

Photo by Akshar Dave on Unsplash

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I am currently unplugged from all social media except for Substack Notes, which is automatically connected to the Substack profile I created to write this newsletter.  

My Instagram and Facebook accounts have been deactivated for several months now. I recently deactivated my Twitter account, but I need to be careful because Twitter deletes your account after 30 days of deactivation. 

This is a pattern for me. I like certain aspects of social media, but I dislike the experience of the major platforms. Every so often I feel the need to step away from the scroll and reflect on what’s happening there and how I am affected by it.

Here are my latest thoughts. 

Elon is a buzzkill 

Elon Musk has treated Twitter in the same manner and spirit in which Donald Trump created Truth Social. Twitter is Elon’s toy, and a mechanism for him to advance his political points of view. And like Trump, his output is superficial and emotional. 

It would be one thing for Elon to share his opinions like everybody else. But no, he games the system to guarantee that everyone on Twitter is confronted with his opinions. 

The most obvious example is the “For You” tab. This is an algorithmic feed that is often the first thing you see when you open the program, even if you prefer the other feed that shows chronological posts from accounts you follow.

The algorithmic feed is a cornucopia of hot garbage. First of all, Elon promotes his own tweets, so you are sure to know when he is signal boosting false claims about Arizona elections or sharing trollish memes. If you keep scrolling on the feed, you will see videos of gratuitous violence, or maybe some videos about 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Elon Musk also hosts livestream forums. These forums pop up on the sidebar of your account, even if you don’t follow Elon. The most recent one was with Trump, but he also hosted one with Ron DeSantis and David Sacks where they talked about culture war issues for two hours.

Elon Musk is trying to fit in with the New Right, and he is succeeding.

Old-school conservatives talked about family values and free markets. The New Right talks about a “conservative welfare state” and they disparage people who don’t have kids.

The New Right is keen on Donald Trump, who used to be a master of the Twitter medium.

The fact that a reality TV show host trolled his way to the White House in 2016 tells you a lot about Twitter and its role in society — even before Elon made it worse by turning it into X.

Are tweets news?

In general, news outlets seem to lean too heavily on tweets in terms of shaping news coverage. Reporters and columnists spend time on Twitter, and when you spend time on Twitter, the tweets feel important. 

Still, it would be nice if news outlets would publish a daily page of noteworthy tweets by politicians, pundits, journalists, and business leaders. Basically, I wish someone would compile the good tweets onto a website so I could read them without having to see the annoying and stupid tweets. 

Let’s take a recent example where I felt lost without social media.

When Doug Ducey endorsed Kari Lake for Senate even though Lake is an erratic person who has still not conceded her previous election loss, he published a Twitter thread. Almost every news outlet quoted his first tweet, but I didn’t see anyone quote the second tweet where he wrote a bullet-point list of agenda items as a way of explaining the endorsement. (I found Ducey’s full statement on his Facebook page, which, unlike a Twitter thread, is viewable without an account.)

I don’t expect news outlets to publish entire statements made by politicians. I’m just complaining about having to type a few words into Google and click a button to find the information I want to find. Gotta have a good rationalization for when I reactivate my Twitter account.

Lost time is not found again

One of the main reasons I took a break from Twitter is that I felt bad wasting so much time scrolling. Without Twitter, I still spend a lot of time reading news and surfing the web, but it doesn’t make me feel bad.

When you click on a news website, you find a static page. There’s a page of headlines. If you want to read, click a button. Otherwise, move along. Search for what you want to find.

Scrolling through Twitter is passive and endless. I keep scrolling not because there’s something to find, but just to see what else is there. Oftentimes, the “what else” is a trollish meme by Elon Musk. 

Scrolling can feel like a compulsion or an addiction — I know I want to do something else but I keep scrolling to get more. 

Surfing the web doesn’t cause me to feel this sensation. 

A balancing act

The last thing I will say is that I notice a difference, cognitively, when I’m active on Twitter and when I’m not.  

When I get in the habit of reading and writing tweets, I notice myself reacting to news with tweet-formed thoughts. The medium consists of immediate reactions, usually short and snappy, and so I start thinking that way.

This mental habit is in conflict with how I want to think when I write longer-form posts here on Substack.

A lot of people are prolific in both mediums, but I tend to get in a groove and stay there until I switch to the other medium. 

So this is where I’ll be: waffling back and forth between wanting to keep tabs on the online chatter and never wanting to see it again.

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