Taking Care Of Ourselves On Twitter

Written By Don Shetterly

One of the things that I think we forget to do is take care of ourselves on Twitter.  It is far too easy to get sucked into the social media unconscious world before we know it.

There is so much that I enjoy about Twitter including many of my followers.  I love great discussions by others on my follower list.  I love it when others share how they are coming through their own struggles.  The ones that strive to make a difference in the world get my utmost respect.

How can you take care of yourself on Twitter?

Follow The Right People

Yes, I know it isn't easy sometimes to know who the right people are too follow.  There's a lot of games played on Twitter and even trying to check out a profile and the tweets of someone, sometimes you just get fooled.  Be careful and when you see people crossing the line, kick them off.  When they really cross the line, that's when I report them.  Sorry, but when someone is bullying or abusing others and being disrespectful, they need a time-out!

Mute Words

You may not know it on Twitter, but one of the best features is the "muted words" function.  If you go up to you your profile picture, click on the "settings and privacy" menu item, you should see one in there that says "muted words."  All you have to do is start adding in the words you don't want to see.  It doesn't mean you stop following people.  You no longer have to look at those conversations which you don't want to see in your Twitter Feed.  It is a way of taking care of ourselves on Twitter especially when things trigger us.

As new words come up, I just add them to my list, and that is the last of that issue I have to worry about on Twitter.  I'm not trying to hide my head in the sand.  I just don't wish to see tweet after tweet all day long of stuff that gets far too overwhelming.

It's Not Our Circus

One of the best things we can do in taking care of ourselves on Twitter is to realize that not every issue is one we need to engage.  If we remind ourselves that it's not our circus, we can give ourselves permission to walk away from the tweet.  After all, sometimes you're better to walk away than engage and bring yourself down into the mud pit with everyone else.  I've written about rolling around in the mud pit with everyone else.  When you do that, no one can tell you apart from the ones you're fighting.  A mud pit makes both people look the same.

Put A Stop Watch On Your Twitter Time

One of the things with social media is that it can suck you into this world.  Before you realize it, the hours have passed by quickly.  There is something about this behavior that is almost unconscious, and it can consume your time.  Put a stopwatch on your Twitter time.  It helps us take care of ourselves on Twitter.  The world will exist if we are on Twitter or not.  The world will continue regardless of what we tweet or not.  We've traded in taking care of ourselves in life with spending far too much time on Twitter and social media.

Don't Be Part Of The Problem

I see a lot of tweets that come through where they make me scratch my head in disbelief.  Even people who claim to have love or are enlightened or have the answers.  Sometimes those people can be some of the worst offenders.  We often tend to respond on Twitter without thoroughly thinking.  Sometimes the words we say can inflict great harm on others unintentionally.  Of course, you can't always know that, and you can't always prevent this.  Everyone has their own triggers.  Just make sure you think before you type.  Respond with compassion and respect and love.  Before you respond, think about how you would react if someone said the same words to you.  Make sure you're not a part of the problem you despise because very often, we are.

Here's to taking care of ourselves on Twitter!

Taking care of ourselves on Twitter is essential.  I'm sure there are things I'm missing here and please leave a comment below on what ways work for you.  Let's help everyone by sharing what we do.  After all, we're in this social media world together.  

Follow me on Twitter, @MindBodyThought

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Blog Post And Images (c) 3/04/18 by Don Shetterly

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Does Twitter Endorse Porn?

This subject really gets under my skin.  It doesn't seem like anything is being done about it and if I try to contact Twitter, I get absolutely no response.  So, I have to conclude that in the absence of action, twitter endorses porn.  They allow it on their site and they do very little to stop it.  That to me, is an endorsement!

I don't intentionally go and follow people who display porn on their timelines.  In fact, when I check them out, I often don't see any porn whatsoever and lo and behold, later the porn pictures start popping up on my twitter feed.

Of course, I know you can report them and block them, but it doesn't do anything to solve the problem.  I have a feeling that twitter (if they actually do anything) comes along and deletes the picture.  The individual just does it again and again, sometimes deleting the images I think so when twitter goes to look, they see nothing.  I may be wrong, but in lieu of proper responses from twitter, how do I know they are actually doing anything about it.

Twitter fails to respond...

You can direct message them or tweet them and they absolutely fail to respond.  You can block these people all day long and it seems like they spring up again and again with the very same pictures you were seeing before.  No one seems to do anything to get rid of it, but hey twitter makes sure you know how to mute people that are annoying.  Never mind that this doesn't solve the issue.


I've had moments where I've been in a public place or on an airplane checking my twitter feed only to have one of these porn pictures displayed.  Its rather embarrassing especially when its the close up shot.  Imagine if a child saw that.  There's no way for me to stop it other than not being on Twitter!

Imagine if we went around all day showing these images in our streets.  What would be the reaction?  Yes, there would be an uproar.  In the case of twitter, its just business as usual.  They just don't care!  Twitter seems to endorse porn, or so it seems.

Twitter sacrifices a society norm...

It almost seems that twitter wants as many users as it can get, so it sacrifices what should be a norm in our society.  We don't need pornographic images forced into our twitter feeds all day and all night.  There's hopefully a much better usage for social media than that, but Twitter has to get serious and do the right thing.

We already have enough problems with human trafficking and child porn and child sexual abuse.  We already have enough problems with scammers.  Why is it then that Twitter does not do anymore than they do in this area of porn.  That is why I feel Twitter endorses porn!
 

Sure, you can set your settings to not see all of that, but it still shows up.  I cringe at the thought of a young child looking at twitter.  These are images they do not need to see.  It is wrong in every sense of the word.

Maybe if Twitter wanted to be a serious competitor to Facebook and other social media sites, it might consider cleaning up its own house first.  Maybe by having a "quality" system, they could be better than they are today.  Yet, it seems their main focus is on how many people you can follow in a specific undocumented time frame, rather than keeping the porn off of the news feed.

I believe we can do better with social media.  I think this platform has potential, but it is often saturated with too much that does very little good for anyone's day.  We can do better on social media!