There is a lot of pleasure to be had following art, architecture, photography etc accounts: there is something for everyone out there - indeed a lot more than something.
I agree with all the excellent advice here. A couple more things
Although v much a tadpole against the tide feeling, try to avoid being satisfied by mere volume of engagement. Quality counts. Who is engaging with your tweets? One intelligent or even cordial reply is worth hundreds of anonymous clicks. And if you are looking at volume of engagement as a metric, do a quick calculation of the engagement on a tweet from a high profile account as a percentage of its followers. That can be quite telling of its relative insignificance.
I try not to waste (more of) my time with people in replies who are just there to waste it, even after filtering notifications as Sam does. But, again a tadpole v tide thing, I think it’s positive engagement to persuade someone to reflect on and delete an awful or simply factually wrong tweet.
And one more thing - leave this conversation is a great new feature. You can just forget the existence of a discussion which has drifted well away from anything that interested you enough to participate in it.
I wish there was a readily available stat for how echo-chamber-y an account is. Some of the best accounts to follow are the ones who, like you, make an effort to engage and share between the partisan sink-holes that naturally form on Twitter.
Ive only been on a few months and all of this was either new or good advice! Thanks for taking the time. Tweetdeck was a game changer! The muting/blocking policy and advice was especially good. As was filtering down responses to value add...
I did something right at the start of twitter which has turned out to be godsend at times, which is to have two accounts based on different interests. One is mainly politics / current affairs, and the other is football. If one of these spheres is proving too much I ignore that account for a bit, and come back when its calmer. Great tips above!
Thanks for this. I started using twitter with one link from the Guardian during (and from) the attempted coup in Turkey. I have been grateful for twitter ever since, from topic to topic to topic.. My world would be smaller without it. But ... and I gather one shouldn't admit this ... I didn't know about tweetdecks. That is going to make the experience so much better.
An extra piece of advice to add, that I have found very useful, is to follow a couple of ‘big hitter’ people like you and Ian Leslie. You have that scout mindset and engage politely with many users who have different views from you. I get to sit back and benefit from your filtering!
"One of the great benefits of twitter is finding people who effectively challenge your ideas."
"Numerical competency is a valuable skill on almost any issue. Many of the most useful accounts came from (and still are) people like ... John Burn-Murdoch who had no prior medical expertise but are just good at analysing the data"
Yet it's clear from your Twitter feed that your ideas are actually unchallengeable. You "know" that the pandemic was as deadly as people like Burn-Murdoch told you (he has no idea by the way) and that man-made climate change is causing a "burning planet" (it isn't and won't).
If you genuinely believe differently, and you have the depth of knowledge to support your beliefs, you have a chance to debate these issues and inform your audience. I'm guessing you won't do that - anyone who disagrees with you is "sealioning".
The truth is that Twitter is first and foremost a platform for the political left to broadcast in an echo-chamber. It's a disaster.
Asks for examples of BBC factual inaccuracies. Is provided with numerous examples. Absolutely isn't interested - silence is the only response. Probably has non-followers muted, lest they disturb his dishonest, delusional echo chamber. May even have "withdrawn" from the conversation.
Similarly, one could ask for evidence to support the "fairly obvious" claim in this tweet:
There is a lot of pleasure to be had following art, architecture, photography etc accounts: there is something for everyone out there - indeed a lot more than something.
Next, please, a guide to staying off Twitter to maintain productivity! Or at least how to balance the two...
I agree with all the excellent advice here. A couple more things
Although v much a tadpole against the tide feeling, try to avoid being satisfied by mere volume of engagement. Quality counts. Who is engaging with your tweets? One intelligent or even cordial reply is worth hundreds of anonymous clicks. And if you are looking at volume of engagement as a metric, do a quick calculation of the engagement on a tweet from a high profile account as a percentage of its followers. That can be quite telling of its relative insignificance.
I try not to waste (more of) my time with people in replies who are just there to waste it, even after filtering notifications as Sam does. But, again a tadpole v tide thing, I think it’s positive engagement to persuade someone to reflect on and delete an awful or simply factually wrong tweet.
And one more thing - leave this conversation is a great new feature. You can just forget the existence of a discussion which has drifted well away from anything that interested you enough to participate in it.
Two tips from someone who quit for the good of his mental health:
Be very wary of ‘audience capture’, the phenomenon by which one feels reluctant to step out of the opinion frameworks permitted by your followers.
Any tweet that causes an instant emotional reaction is best ignored. Emotional contagion is powerful in the crucible of Twitter.
I wish there was a readily available stat for how echo-chamber-y an account is. Some of the best accounts to follow are the ones who, like you, make an effort to engage and share between the partisan sink-holes that naturally form on Twitter.
Ive only been on a few months and all of this was either new or good advice! Thanks for taking the time. Tweetdeck was a game changer! The muting/blocking policy and advice was especially good. As was filtering down responses to value add...
I did something right at the start of twitter which has turned out to be godsend at times, which is to have two accounts based on different interests. One is mainly politics / current affairs, and the other is football. If one of these spheres is proving too much I ignore that account for a bit, and come back when its calmer. Great tips above!
Thanks for this. I started using twitter with one link from the Guardian during (and from) the attempted coup in Turkey. I have been grateful for twitter ever since, from topic to topic to topic.. My world would be smaller without it. But ... and I gather one shouldn't admit this ... I didn't know about tweetdecks. That is going to make the experience so much better.
An extra piece of advice to add, that I have found very useful, is to follow a couple of ‘big hitter’ people like you and Ian Leslie. You have that scout mindset and engage politely with many users who have different views from you. I get to sit back and benefit from your filtering!
Thank you for (generously) sharing Sam. Very interesting and useful stuff.
Thank you for this. Some very useful tips here.
Thanks, if nothing else I now know what sealioning is!
Interesting.
"One of the great benefits of twitter is finding people who effectively challenge your ideas."
"Numerical competency is a valuable skill on almost any issue. Many of the most useful accounts came from (and still are) people like ... John Burn-Murdoch who had no prior medical expertise but are just good at analysing the data"
Yet it's clear from your Twitter feed that your ideas are actually unchallengeable. You "know" that the pandemic was as deadly as people like Burn-Murdoch told you (he has no idea by the way) and that man-made climate change is causing a "burning planet" (it isn't and won't).
If you genuinely believe differently, and you have the depth of knowledge to support your beliefs, you have a chance to debate these issues and inform your audience. I'm guessing you won't do that - anyone who disagrees with you is "sealioning".
The truth is that Twitter is first and foremost a platform for the political left to broadcast in an echo-chamber. It's a disaster.
Here is a classic example of actual sealioning - from a left-wing remainiac, unusually.
https://twitter.com/nelsonbrowne/status/1560910058979999745
Asks for examples of BBC factual inaccuracies. Is provided with numerous examples. Absolutely isn't interested - silence is the only response. Probably has non-followers muted, lest they disturb his dishonest, delusional echo chamber. May even have "withdrawn" from the conversation.
Similarly, one could ask for evidence to support the "fairly obvious" claim in this tweet:
https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1560372797372784641
And, similarly, one would be a naïve fool to expect an intelligent honest answer. Hypocrisy is the gift that just keeps on giving...
Why do you keep a mentions column in your tweetdeck screen? How valuable is it as screen real estate?