Twitter is not the healthiest of habits. It sucks hours. It sucks days. It requires dedication. It requires long stretches of inactivity. It makes you lie to yourself. It makes you tell yourself that you are learning something by continuously refreshing your feed to read the latest article or tweet from such and such opinion leader.

It takes you away from life. And life’s pursuits. The avid users of the medium will claim this is not true. But if you believe them, it is a bit like taking advice from a crack addict on the virtues of smoking rocks. There are very few, if you are wondering.

I stopped using twitter about five weeks ago. I have been more productive, more engaged in the world around me, and I am slowly making progress on my novel. Currently I am struggling with a bit of dialogue between characters, but at least I am not struggling to keep up with the tweets.

I’ve heard social media helps create revolutions, but I also think it stops many more. Personal revolutions, societal revolutions, all put on hold because everyone’s having one-way conversations with themselves, rather than engaging with real humans.

I don’t know how long I will be able to stay on the wagon, but I am enjoying the fresh air.

Author

  • David Smith is a world famous artist and a British Olympic hammer thrower. He is a curler for Scotland and Manitoba. A pro wrestler fondly known as the British Bulldog. A Canadian economist and a Mormon missionary they call the Sweet Singer of Israel. He is a British historian and a bishop. David Smith is the biographer of HG Wells, a professor of physics, a composer and a music teacher at Yale. He played rugby for Samoa, England and New Zealand. He created the Melissa worm, a deadly computer virus. He is the Guardian's man in Africa, he starred in a reality TV show and shot his way to silver in the 600m military rifle prone position at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp. But this isn't that David Smith. This is the blog of the other David Smith. David J Smith. The one from Durban by the Sea. The one who lives in Amsterdam. Yes, him. The David Smith who likes to write about himself in the third person. To learn about all the other David Smiths: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Smith To contact this David Smith: [email protected]

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David J Smith

David Smith is a world famous artist and a British Olympic hammer thrower. He is a curler for Scotland and Manitoba. A pro wrestler fondly known as the British Bulldog. A Canadian economist and a Mormon...

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