Gasant Abarder decided to give up another addiction a month after quitting smoking – this time killing his Twitter account. Well, the sun came up the next day and he was fine and writes in a new #SliceofGasant column of his surprise that there aren’t specialists who focus solely on social media addiction.
Abarder, who recently launched his book, Hack with a Grenade, is among the country’s most influential media voices. Catch his weekly column here.
Exactly a month ago, I went cold turkey and quit smoking. The other night at a social gathering, I tested my resilience among smokers and was nauseous from the vile smell. I am winning.
Now I’m battling another addiction. I’m a Twaddict. About a week and a bit ago, I couldn’t last 30 minutes without checking my phone and I spent hours scrolling, posting and engaging in meaningless rubbish.
It’s exactly like being a smoker, alcoholic or drug addict. I’m surprised some clever shrink hasn’t made Twaddiction a niche area, milking desperate souls to overcome their social media poison of choice. There should be ‘A Centre for Kids That Social Media Too Much (with apologies to the makers of Zoolander)’.
Twitter is my drug of choice. It’s where people with real influence hang out. In 280 characters, you need to make your point eloquently. As a former newspaper editor, I dared not make spelling or grammatical errors.
If you were a member of the mob, your blue tick meant you were a ‘made man’. An untouchable. Messi has one. Barack Obama has one. Gasant Abarder had one – until that prick, Elon Musk, took my tick.
I worked hard to earn my blue tick and my more than 21 000 followers, comprising more than 90 percent bonafide users. Every time I got a new follower, a mention, a like or a retweet and that push notification popped up, it was like a heroin shot to the bloodstream.
My blue tick and reach gave me superpowers. The City of Cape Town reacted and responded to my tweets immediately. Big brands engaged me and gave me cars to drive. If I didn’t like something or was wronged, PR folks went to great lengths to keep me happy.
Can you understand how powerful this drug was? I lived my life at 280 characters at a time – pictures and videos optional.
I loved the feeling of being a keyboard warrior, taking up issues I felt passionate about. Heck, if I ran out of issues, I took up issues on behalf of others. People would reach out privately to help them with their causes. When I spoke about the media, people listened. It was also on Twitter that I wrote a thread about my mental health challenges.
And some pretty famous folks followed me back. I’m not a name-dropper, but … Gordon Ramsey and a few legendary former Proteas cricketers like Vernon Philander, Jonty Rhodes and Ashwell Prince. Sipho ‘Hotstix’ Mabuse … it didn’t get any bigger!
The thing is, Twitter was a tool I used as a journalist as a first source of breaking news. Obviously, this info needed to be corroborated. But then I fell in love with the social: a tweet about the merits of a gatsby versus a bunny chow (and other such random rubbish) going viral. The irony was that when I actually tweeted something meaningful, the engagement was disappointing.
Recently, I helped Africa Check by posting its tips to identify fake news. It got very little traction. I then evaluated the amount of time I was spending inside this Twitter world versus quality time spent outside in the real world.
So, a week and a half ago, I killed my account. It wasn’t a sudden decision, but one I had contemplated over time. I had been on the receiving end of some nasty comments about mental health that started off as so-called football ‘banter’. Eventually, after the Africa Check experience, I decided I had enough.
Now, I’m stopping to smell the roses – literally. And I’m not tweeting about it afterwards. I do have the habit of commenting on life’s little quirks. Comically, I’ve resorted to posting these reflections on WhatsApp statuses. It just doesn’t hit the same.
But since killing Twitter, I have been present. My mood has been lighter. I have spent two hours or more at a time without looking at my phone, and my average screen time last week was down to a double-figure percentage.
The morning after killing my Twitter account, the sun still came up! Shocker! I was giving folks my full attention when they talked to me.
Whatever your poison, don’t be a hunchback, lurching at the dinner table over your smartphone. Don’t start such a committed relationship with social media that it begins to fill up time in your real life. I’ve wasted so much time with this Bluebird app that I’ve missed important parts of my life by not living in the now, in the moment.
So, Twitter, thanks for the highs – like meeting great new friends (if I don’t have your number you’re not one of them) – and screw you for the lows. It was a great ride. But I’m out!
Also read:
Picture: Pexels