Recently, when Elon Musk took over Twitter, it made me really reflect on my stance on social media. I wouldn't consider myself to be a great Twitter power user - though I've been on Twitter since 2009. My last approach, a strategy if you will, was to use Twitter as some kind of microblog platform. A platform where I could, mostly for myself, share things I learn or observe so I could use it as a reference in the future. Also mostly for myself.

As you know, things changed at Twitter; I wouldn't say for the better - it's a pretty big shitshow if you ask me. However, that's not really the point. Social media changed, and I'm not sure if it's just me, probably not, but I got to the point where I could barely stand the polarization and hatred in every tiny bit of information I glanced at. The times when I was scrolling through the timeline of cool tech stuff are gone, now everywhere are just fancy clickbait-ish headlines with little or no value.

What is the point? What am I getting back for my time? I asked myself multiple times. The times when I had fun or learned something that would help me progress in my life on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other sites I used often are gone. I remember pretty clearly that once Instagram added the Stories feature - I got lost - I kinda didn't know how to use it, or maybe I just lost some narcissistic part of my personality; however, I haven't picked it up till this day. Maybe I'm just getting old.

So here's what I plan to do now - whenever I have the itch to open Twitter, I open Reeder instead. I've been collecting blogs and interesting articles for more than a year now and Reeder does an awesome job of that. However, I was always struggling with finding time to go through the things I saved there. Silly, I know. I'm not trying to set any goals or something like this - I guess there's no need to torture my brain with more numbers, badges, and achievements to compete with. It's more about that approach - whenever I decide to consume something, I should try to bet on something worth it. My father was always saying: “One should finish the book, even though they think it's bad. It's good to create a sense of what's bad, to recognize it later”. He's not wrong, at least not entirely - but I'm trying to internalize that once I know it's bad, I'm just going to drop it. Life is too precious to be buried in poor content.

I'd also like to go further and try to establish some habits to actually create things. To get better at writing, for example. After all, writing is quite a big portion of being a senior+ engineer. This post is a kind of contract between me and future me. To have something tangible for my next reflection. We will see. Until then; see you around, my friends.

P.S: The cover image was generated by Stable Diffusion with this prompt: Abstract oil painting of a man who just signed contract with themself as over-the shoulder shot via Diffusion Bee.