During this lock down situation I have been faced with an ugly truth – that I procrastinate and waste a lot of my precious time mindlessly scrolling on social media. But thats the tea I’ll save for another blog post.

There was one social media platform that continued to bug me – Twitter.

A few years ago, I saw Twitter as this marvelous platform where I could access news and updates that are not broadcast on the mainstream media. Where people shared their creativity and personality through 140 characters and we followed people based on what they had to say. Whew, a breather from Instagram! Or so you’d think.

I also found that Twitter is home to a lot of niche groups, for instance “Black” Twitter produces content aimed at reiterating shared experiences that people outside of this community may not be able to identity with.

So perhaps, my views on Twitter are bound to the community I’m in, the people I follow and the content that I am presented with, nevertheless enough blabbing.

I don’t need to know what a 100 million other peoples opinions on something are.

As part of Gen Z, the first generation to partially grow up where social media accounts are the norm-, I am well accustomed to seeing hundreds of Tweets in a day. Everyone has something to say, whether it be politics or why something I happen to like is shit. These opinions often contradict my own and I do genuinely believe its unhealthy for us to consume so many different opinions on subjects. As somebody who has used social media through all her teens, I began to wonder who I really am and how much of my personality is and has been influenced by social media. I do believe that a lot of my mannerisms and opinions on things may have been skewed to align with what is seen as popular. At 21,I am now learning and unlearning and finding myself in things I enjoy.

Black Twitter gives me the heebie jeebies.

As I mentioned earlier, whilst a Twitter user, you could say I belonged to “Black Twitter”. There are many things that irk me about Black Twitter, but I’ll keep it brief as there is always more tea and shade for another blog post.

One being ethnicity debates : East Africans Vs West Africans, West Africans vs Caribbeans and the list goes on. The stereotypes that are perpetuated during this conversations often leaves me closing the app irritated and shocked at how people are able to display such acts of outright ignorance.

Soo much emphasis is placed on material acquisition – I’ve seen the most shallow tweets surrounding such topics ranging from boys not dating a girl if she doesn’t have a pair of Jordan’s to people making a mockery of social housing. If you were to ignore statistics you would think members of black Twitter are all CEO’S and billionaires – personally, I think this is an act of overcompensation.

OMG WHO’S JOLLOF IS BETTER???? – We are way too grown for this; again who cares?

Dehumanisation and humiliation of black women – If you’re aware of this, a few UK ‘Celebs’ were called out for their distasteful Tweets towards black women and honestly – How do you think seeing this stuff makes us feel? We already have it hard enough out there but to be constantly reminded of it online? Miss me with that bullshit.

Constant Oversharing

This is one that irritates the hell out of me. People are constantly sharing the most personal details of their lives on Twitter and its honestly irritating. There are sooo many things that should be confined to your real life.

What’s the final verdict

I feel great since leaving Twitter, I have a lot more mental clarity, and I’m not concerned about what other peoples opinions on things are – instead I seek the opinions around me and to further challenge myself I read books and talk to people who may have opposing opinions about a subject. I have found this works brilliantly for me and I do not see the need for me to come back to Twitter – don’t get me wrong Twitter can be a fabulous platform and it can provide so many opportunities to people. I have acknowledged however I never left the app feeling fulfilled or happy, so to me it was a waste of space digitally and mentally. I ended up writing this post at 2AM ( London time) – super duper 2AM’D right now lol, so yeah some reasons why I deleted my Twitter acc.

Thank you for reading!

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ABG x