How to Manoeuvre Twitter as an Ordinary Mortal and Keep Your Sanity

Do you often find yourself shaking your head in disbelief, questioning all of humanity and feeling completely out of place while browsing through Twitter? If the answer is yes, here are some tips that helped me personally to start enjoying the medium again:

1) Change Your Settings

THE most effective thing to do is to ALWAYS make sure you have your feed set to "show latest tweets first". This way you have much more control over what content makes its way into your feed. Only tweets and retweets of people you actually follow will appear, which drastically minimizes the likelihood of content from accounts outside of your choosing creeping its way in. If you choose Twitters other option, a huge chunk of what pops up on your screen will be whatever the people you follow are liking left and right. If you are truly interested and curious to see what a particular person is liking you can still check out their profile and have a look at their likes without being spammed by every single interaction each person you follow is having. Make sure to check up on that setting every now and then as Twitter will periodically switch it back.

2) Limit Who You're Following

Be selective about who you follow. No, you are not a bad person for not following someone back who started following you. You have no obligation to that account and/or person whatsoever. There definitely is a thing as netiquette, but the whole I follow you, you follow me culture is not part of it. If someone starts following you, one would assume they do so because they are interested in what you are tweeting about. If you happen to be interested in the content they share as well, perfect! But if youre not, then that is just as good. Be genuine and dont follow accounts or people you are not actually interested in. They will only clutter up your Twitterverse and take away space from what you actually want to see.

3) Make Use of the Block Button

With that said, also have an eye on who is following you. If you feel uncomfortable with certain people or you suspect some accounts might attract bots or scammers, get rid of them. Im not sure a lot of users are aware of that, but it is fairly easy to get rid of unwanted followers. If you really want them out of your sight, you can just block them and leave it at that. You dont have to be as strict though - if you block someone and then go in and hit the unblock button again, they will be gone from your follower list all the same, even without being banned completely. (By the way, in case you have second guesses or some form of guilty conscience about using this method: I promise you, more often than not, people wont even notice they arent following you anymore. And if they do and truly are interested in your content, they will follow you again.)

4) Make Use of the Lists Feature

Another thing I believe a lot of people underestimate is the usefulness of Twitter lists. Its the perfect way to keep accounts and topics organized and easily opt in and out of different content. If you are a coder for example, instead of starting to follow hundreds of different coding accounts and completely flood your feed on a daily basis, simply create a list for them. That way you still have everything related to that topic conveniently grouped together in one place, but you are left with the possibility of consciously deciding when to check in and up on all those tweets. You wont get bombarded with all that noise first thing every time you enter Twitter but only when you feel up for it. Keep your actual feed small so that you wont miss out on content that is truly meaningful to you and people you are actually wanting to connect and interact with on a regular basis.

Every single one of us is creating a bubble on this platform, that is just an unavoidable fact. But it is up to you if you consciously shape what that bubble looks like or if you just let it grow randomly. If you truly wish to do so, you can make spaces like Twitter into your own little happy place, find genuine connection, inspiration and fruitful exchanges. There is a way of using social media that will leave you connected with the world without having to sacrifice your mental health, happiness or peace of mind. Dont let it overwhelm you or take you over. As long as you use it in a conscious way, it can be such a great place to learn and connect. As with everything, just be mindful about it and put your happiness first.