The same with Facebook. For me, it was more painfull to quit facebook (no caps needed) than the big "T".
Quit Twitter
Jun 01, 2019
I quit Twitter and haven't post or even logged on in over a year. I can safely say I have never been happier. Twitter is a complete dumpster fire that consumes you and everything thing the demon touches. If I was a religious person I'd say with complete confidence that Twitter is a product of Satan run by one of this minions.
Just quit.
It will be hard for the first few months. It's like a drug you have to detox from.
Just do it.
I've heard all the excuses for not quitting (I made them all), just substitute the words "heroin" or "booze" for "twitter" and see if your excuses make sense anymore.
You will be a happier person.
Just quit.
Sir Francois de Mercier
Jun 01, 2019
Ignacio
Jun 02, 2019
Do you use another social media or place to share news and thoughts? (Including this blog). I want to know if there is an efficient way to keep updated with news without end in these kind of social networks
Octavi
Jun 02, 2019
I'm in the process of quitting as well. I deleted the phone app and any link on my PC a few months ago and feels great. Sometimes I just forget to log in for a few days. There was a time when checking Twitter was the first thing I did in the morning and that made me angry and depressed for the rest of the day. It's pure poison.
Jim
Jun 02, 2019
I have the opposite problem - I'm meant to go on it often to try to network and engage with people in my field, but I always forget or I just go on for 5 mins and think, "eh, I can't be bothered to read all these tweets and like and reply, etc." so I just close it.
J. McCrackan
Jun 02, 2019
Actually, I've heard the same excuses to try heroin and booze in the first place: "It'll make you happier." So exactly *how* has quitting Twitter made you happier?
Johnny Walker
Jun 02, 2019
The sooner Twitter dies, the better. It's the perfect platform for reductive and negative comments, and impossible to have a nuanced, intelligent discussion on it. It's the worst of the internet.
Zak Phoenix McKracken
Jun 02, 2019
If you want, please login in the Thimbleweed Park forum, sometimes. Just to read and optionally write some positive thoughts.
Guntha
Jun 03, 2019
I originally created a Twitter account as a cheap way to get more visibility, to "market" my things. Now I argue with people I don't even know, and I can feel my opinions becoming less and less nuanced.
Winfried Maus
Jun 03, 2019
I wholeheartedly agree. I regularly check the Twitter feeds (tweets? I don't even know the terminology!) of four people, but I never bothered to open an account myself. I also never opened a Facebook account - and in my book, Facebook represents the worst of the Internet. Peer pressure more or less pushed me into opening a LinkedIn account years ago, but I never found a value for myself in that network; the data collected there might be of interest to Microsoft (who bought LinkedIn a while ago), but not once did I have the impression that LinkedIn actually did something for me. Other poison on the web are troll forums like macrumors.com, Spiegel Online (yeah, I'm German...), heise.de or basically any tech-related webpage that has a "forum". These things were nice before the Internet became a mass medium that everybody could use. Nowadays, the Internet is just as dumb and dirty as TV and the less time you spend on it, the better.
Winfried Maus
Jun 03, 2019
I think this eMail address should now show my pic...?
Simon
Jun 03, 2019
Well said MR.Gilbert. I quit more than 3 years ago from twitter and other life leeching sites and it feels amazing after the adjustment period has passed. The only form of electronic entertainment I kept are my beloved old (and some new) pc adv games. Many many thanks for all the great games you have created (and hopefully will in the future) and best wishes from far away Slovakia. Since the very early golden era adventure days (80's) You still have many (veeery old) fans of your works over here in east EU. We often talk about these gems when we get together over a beer etc. May the light always guide your path 😀
Evan
Jun 03, 2019
I quit Facebook and Twitter over a year ago. Do not miss them one bit! At first I though i'd miss the connections I had with people from my past. But then I realized, pre social media, these people would have faded out of my life long ago. For good reason too! I have nothing in common with them anymore other than we shared some time at some point in the distant past. The people I really care about I can call or text any time I want.
Ian Prest
Jun 03, 2019
I agree 100%. You, sir, just got yourself another Twitter follower!
Mark Bauermeister
Jun 04, 2019
Dunno about Twitter, but Facebook quite literally ruined my life.
Lukas
Jun 04, 2019
Post doesn't leave much room, so I'll just add "I disagree". :)
Lancelot's Hangover
Jun 04, 2019
I'm curious Ron : as you know it, social media and communtiy management are very important for indie devs to promote their games (especially if they're not very well known and/or didn't made lots of games yet). Once you'll have a new game to promote, will you go back to Twitter (and other big social media)? Will you delegate this task to a community manager? What's your advice for indies who don't have budget to hire communty managers but still want to expose their game to players and press via social media ?
Ron Gilbert
Jun 04, 2019
@Lancelot, that's a really good question and one I don't know the answer to. My new game will probably have a social media presence, but it's not going to be me and it's going to be about the game not shit happening in the world. I also suspect that an indie being on Twitter has less impact that people think.
Lancelot's Hangover
Jun 04, 2019
Thanks a lot for your answer, Ron.
Fun fact : I've read (on Twitter) that Reddit brings way more players and sales (5 to 10 times) than Twitter (my own experience during my KS campaign and some conversations with other devs lead to the same conclusion). I guess the best way to manage yourself a social media presence would be to post some GIFs and screenshots and go away as soon as it's published - but the tentation to hang out, read some tweets and procrastinate is very high (I plead very guilty on this). After all, social media are design to suck all your attention :/
Fun fact : I've read (on Twitter) that Reddit brings way more players and sales (5 to 10 times) than Twitter (my own experience during my KS campaign and some conversations with other devs lead to the same conclusion). I guess the best way to manage yourself a social media presence would be to post some GIFs and screenshots and go away as soon as it's published - but the tentation to hang out, read some tweets and procrastinate is very high (I plead very guilty on this). After all, social media are design to suck all your attention :/
Scott Cameron
Jun 05, 2019
In a world of Facebook and Twitter, sites like the Thimbleweed Park forums are super chilled places. Did you have a hand in creating the forum site, or was that fan-made? And if you did, will you create one for your new game so we can all have a new place to hang out? :D
RC
Jun 07, 2019
I guess Twitter is different for "famous" people. I'm a nobody and I never really argue with anyone on Twitter and no one knows I even exist, so no one would ever think of selecting me as a target for trolling or whatever. I use Twitter pretty much like a feed reader. I follow a couple of news sites and people who do interesting stuff and that's it. When I do go check out Twitter, I literally just read the news and I'm done.
Never had a Facebook Account and don't even understand why anyone would use it. It's worthless to me.
Never had a Facebook Account and don't even understand why anyone would use it. It's worthless to me.
AlfredJ
Jun 08, 2019
RC: I only ever got Facebook because it was the main way to keep in touch with new friends/events when I started university, and we (I) didn't realize the evils of the platform yet. I'm 30, and I definitely notice that most people from my generation aren't really using it anymore, apart from the occasional birthday party event. I should probably delete it at this point, but I guess I'm a slave as well since there are still a handful of people I only contact through Facebook, and it is handy for birthday reminders and the event organizers. But these days it's mostly elderly relatives getting heavy use out of it - I rarely check it more than once a week. Still, the day that I unplug from it altogether is approaching fast.
The one that I really would love to get rid of is Whatsapp (I'm from Europe, I think it's less popular in the States?). I'm fine with being able to easily chat with friends I don't get to see that often and get the occasional family baby pics, but I can definitely get into that ugly habit of it being the first/last thing I look at during the day, and spending way too much time on it when I'm stressed and should be focusing on other stuff. I definitely do miss the days of being mostly disconnected from the internet/rest of the world, instead of being always reachable. Sadly, I can't just delete it because we use it for work chat as well (which goes for a lot of jobs over here).
Still, this post was a good reminder that I should put more effort into disconnecting when I'm off the clock and being more present in the moment. I'm always happier and more relaxed whenever I manage to do that for longer periods
The one that I really would love to get rid of is Whatsapp (I'm from Europe, I think it's less popular in the States?). I'm fine with being able to easily chat with friends I don't get to see that often and get the occasional family baby pics, but I can definitely get into that ugly habit of it being the first/last thing I look at during the day, and spending way too much time on it when I'm stressed and should be focusing on other stuff. I definitely do miss the days of being mostly disconnected from the internet/rest of the world, instead of being always reachable. Sadly, I can't just delete it because we use it for work chat as well (which goes for a lot of jobs over here).
Still, this post was a good reminder that I should put more effort into disconnecting when I'm off the clock and being more present in the moment. I'm always happier and more relaxed whenever I manage to do that for longer periods
Marco Maggiore
Jun 08, 2019
Amen!
David Oberlin
Jun 10, 2019
Yeah. For the past five minutes I've been thinking about how I felt about logging off. And to be honest the idea filled me with dread so I went to look at my feed for validation that it brought something worthwhile to my psyche; hah! Yeah...
I'm logging off Twitter and going to do something constructive.
I'm logging off Twitter and going to do something constructive.
George Broussard
Jun 17, 2019
I find what works best for me is: i don't follow people that are constantly negative or especially outraged based. I try to follow artists and creators that are generally positive and post cool things from their projects. You control what you pull into your life via Twitter through the people you follow. This made Twitter a much more pleasurable experience for me overall. For indies trying to start or build a brand I think they have to be on Twitter, just in case. You need to build a following and fans and have a constant easily accessible platform to tell people to wishlist your game every few days.
PiecesofKate
Jun 26, 2019
It's strange to me when people talk about weaning themselves off Twitter because I really like it. I've never suffered mentally from it like I have with Facebook, and have never had a reason to quit it. But maybe I just haven't had my shitstorm moment yet.
Is it the addiction you don't like or the people/politics you've encountered?
Is it the addiction you don't like or the people/politics you've encountered?
Thomas
Jul 02, 2019
Yes. I should do that too...
hmcard
Jul 07, 2019
I did the same thing but with facebook
Morph
Jul 09, 2019
Not a native speaker, so please pardon my English.
I think the problem is more widespread, social networks are absolutely the worst part of the internet right now. They are designed to keep you scrolling the feed, and they create addiction, but the issue about reduced learning performance is deep linked with the internet, or better the WWW, in general. This is the catch, the Internet opened us quite literally an infinite source of information, information that we can retrieve at the speed of light, but on the other side having too much information is a big distraction for our brain.
There are studies showing the connection between pages with a lot of hyperlinks, sounds and videos, and lower learning rates. Our brain is not well suited for this, but our brain is also very malleable and the Internet is changing it. We are becoming less intelligent because we have a computer and the internet remembering and retrieving the information for us, it is just our brain adapting to this new input. This is the same thing that kept happening for centuries in the past; try to think about maps or clocks; before the invention of the map people had better understanding of their surroundings because they had to orientate them self with their eyes and instinct, and in modern days with GPS we've just increased the Gap we started in the past. Same for the clock, our brain adapted so well that often time you eat your lunch because is noon and not because you are hungry. Before clock's invention people followed a more natural cycle, regulating them self with the sun rising and setting.
Other studies showed the connection between having hard time finishing a long book and the internet. It never happened to you? When I was younger I could finish a book in few days, now it took much, much longer(also taking in account life changes like family, kids, etc). Why? Because internet is changing our brain, the information it provides are often short and approximate and you can easily lose yourself in a forest of hyperlinks on connected material.
So, is internet bad for us? Hard to tell, if the human species keeps thriving probably not, we could become more and more connected with our machines and that will let us to be more "intelligent" and fast. But, if our society fails or collapse for any reasons we could awake from our interconnected dream and found out we are dumber than in the past.
If you want to deepen on this subject, I suggest you to read these books:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9778945-the-shallows
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36696533-new-dark-age
I think the problem is more widespread, social networks are absolutely the worst part of the internet right now. They are designed to keep you scrolling the feed, and they create addiction, but the issue about reduced learning performance is deep linked with the internet, or better the WWW, in general. This is the catch, the Internet opened us quite literally an infinite source of information, information that we can retrieve at the speed of light, but on the other side having too much information is a big distraction for our brain.
There are studies showing the connection between pages with a lot of hyperlinks, sounds and videos, and lower learning rates. Our brain is not well suited for this, but our brain is also very malleable and the Internet is changing it. We are becoming less intelligent because we have a computer and the internet remembering and retrieving the information for us, it is just our brain adapting to this new input. This is the same thing that kept happening for centuries in the past; try to think about maps or clocks; before the invention of the map people had better understanding of their surroundings because they had to orientate them self with their eyes and instinct, and in modern days with GPS we've just increased the Gap we started in the past. Same for the clock, our brain adapted so well that often time you eat your lunch because is noon and not because you are hungry. Before clock's invention people followed a more natural cycle, regulating them self with the sun rising and setting.
Other studies showed the connection between having hard time finishing a long book and the internet. It never happened to you? When I was younger I could finish a book in few days, now it took much, much longer(also taking in account life changes like family, kids, etc). Why? Because internet is changing our brain, the information it provides are often short and approximate and you can easily lose yourself in a forest of hyperlinks on connected material.
So, is internet bad for us? Hard to tell, if the human species keeps thriving probably not, we could become more and more connected with our machines and that will let us to be more "intelligent" and fast. But, if our society fails or collapse for any reasons we could awake from our interconnected dream and found out we are dumber than in the past.
If you want to deepen on this subject, I suggest you to read these books:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9778945-the-shallows
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36696533-new-dark-age
Don Pythno Miguel
Jul 09, 2019
While I agree that I do spend probably too much time on Twitter than I should and there is no way to escape some of the hatespeech and whatnot it has been the best resource for me to get better at programming and learn new techniques. I follow people who share constantly their thoughs on graphics programming (as that is the main topic I am interested in) whether it is in form of blogposts/links to papers/or even books. Many of them explicitly state that they are open to answer questions via DM especially for novices like me. I have made use of it and got far better answers than I could have ever found on StackOverflow or anything else. Also, they not only provided insight in how they tackle a certain problem but also point into a direction where to get more material and what to look for.
That being said I find myself often enough just scrolling through twitter without really reading anything. It is hard to discipline oneself - and yes - while I don't like to admit it, it comes somewhat close to an addiction.
Some positive words on Thimbleweed Park: Loved the game, great art, puzzles and dialogues. Also, thank you for sharing some of the development process via the podcast and vimeo videos and blog entries. Really interesting stuff.
Take care everyone and have a good day.
That being said I find myself often enough just scrolling through twitter without really reading anything. It is hard to discipline oneself - and yes - while I don't like to admit it, it comes somewhat close to an addiction.
Some positive words on Thimbleweed Park: Loved the game, great art, puzzles and dialogues. Also, thank you for sharing some of the development process via the podcast and vimeo videos and blog entries. Really interesting stuff.
Take care everyone and have a good day.
Jason
Jul 11, 2019
I've never used Twitter, nor have I ever had the desire to join. Good for you for quitting! I just bought Thimbleweed Park on the Nintendo switch, played through casual, and then hard mode. The world needs more games like this.
Beck
Jul 11, 2019
Just quit Twitter last night after arguing literally all day, when I should've been working, with a bunch of uterusless dudes about a woman's autonomy over her own body. Why? I dunno. I don't know these dudes and what they think absolutely does not matter. Probably the same for them the other way around. Totally ruined my day. I was angry and even felt a little panicky at one point. I already feel better and it was only 12 hours ago that I deactivated my account. So long, Twitter. You are a steaming garbage heap.
Big AL
Jul 14, 2019
It's a lot better without you and your ignorant political foaming-at-the-mouth, Ronnieboy!
Fuz
Jul 24, 2019
You're late to the party, Ron.
I actually never engaged with twitter (always found it stupid and pointless) and stopped altogether to use it some time ago.
Apparently, data shows that it's slowly dying. Good riddance.
I actually never engaged with twitter (always found it stupid and pointless) and stopped altogether to use it some time ago.
Apparently, data shows that it's slowly dying. Good riddance.
Fritz
Jan 25, 2020
IMHO, most people on Twitter feel a big lack of attention and compensate that by using this service. If it wasn't so ugly, they would tell the world that they are sitting on the toilet. Just to say something. The bad thing is: these psychopaths indeed get the attention they were looking for. The louder, the more often they post stuff, the more they get. If you're not already a psychopath, it will turn you into one. That's why I never got an account there.
I also think that the printing and usual online media is paying way too much attention to what psychos post on Twitter. They give them a stage. You could say that our world today is quite strongly influenced by psychopaths — and very few people recognize it.
I also think that the printing and usual online media is paying way too much attention to what psychos post on Twitter. They give them a stage. You could say that our world today is quite strongly influenced by psychopaths — and very few people recognize it.
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