Twitter is a toxic place. At least in my experience.
It’s been almost five months since I decided to deactivate my Twitter account, specifically as a response to Elon Musk’s controversial takeover. And I am happy to report that my mental health has since gotten exponentially better.
I reflect on the days I used to be active on Twitter. Various headlines, opinions, debates, and controversies flooded my feed, while theologians, politicians, commentators, and the general public debated over literally anything and everything. It was a place where the most loved and retweeted Tweets were “hot takes” and infuriated polemics directed at one’s opponents and dissenters.
Numerous cultural commentators have described how Twitter has been used as a means for political polarization, particularly when the algorithm prioritizes “extreme political rhetoric,” which ends up “amplifying inflammatory political rhetoric, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and flat out lies to its users.”1 This phenomenon is evident, especially when former president Trump’s infamous January 6 tweets incited violence and insurrection at the American capitol, “which left five dead and has resulted in more than 700 arrests.”2 And with Elon Musk’s takeover, which caused a 500% increase in the use of the n-word (mainly by white supremacist trolls), it was the last straw. I had to leave.
I got tired of Twitter, drained and exhausted by the constant bickering and Twitter’s enabling of polarization for ad revenue. To me, Twitter eventually became a deeply problematic enterprise that made money off of people’s anxieties, divisions, bigotry, and antagonism.
In “How Twitter Fuels Anxiety,” cultural analyst Laura Turner elaborates:
The cycle of anxiety on Twitter use can be especially bad for women, non-binary and queer people, and people of color. "Vulnerable populations in face-to-face interactions are similarly going to be vulnerable in virtual interactions," says Aalai. These are often people who benefit greatly from Twitter because they can speak directly to the friendly audience who follows them, cutting out the potential for harassment they might receive in other places. But trolls follow, too: A 2014 Pew study shows that 25 percent of women ages 18–24 have been sexually harassed online (as opposed to 13 percent of young men), and 23 percent have been physically threatened. Fifty-one percent of African-American and 54 percent of Hispanic internet users had experienced some form of harassment online, as opposed to 34 percent of white internet users.3
I originally joined Twitter to learn about the newest trends, network with other theologians and scholars, and get the latest “movie news” on my favorite franchises such as DC, Marvel, and the like. But, over the past few years, Twitter has become a mess driven by institutional greed and bigotry. It truly was time to leave, and my mental health has significantly gotten better since.
However, I also do recognize why people choose to be on Twitter — why people retweet what they retweet and “like” what they “like.” It is because people have a deep-seated desire to be heard, to be known, to belong. This is the common human condition, that we gravitate toward people who might accept us with hope to find a common fellowship. This is why people tweet — because they simply just want to be heard. And I believe that Twitter users are just as hungry for belonging as the rest of us (who have either left Twitter or have never been on Twitter).
Twitter reminds me of the “crowd” or “mötley crüe” that Willie Jennings describes in After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging. It is a crowd of people “shouting, screaming, crying, pushing, shoving, calling out to Jesus, ‘Jesus, help me,’ ‘Jesus, over here.’ People being forced to press up against each other to get to Jesus, to hear him, and to get what they need from him. People who hate each other, who would prefer not to be next to each other. Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, rebels, insurrectionists, terrorists, murderers, tax collectors, sinners all … widows, the orphans, the poor, the rich, sex workers, wonderers, magicians, musicians, thieves, gangsters, centurions, addicts, magistrates, city leaders, people from all over the Roman Empire — all pressing to hear Jesus.”4
And I say “kudos” to the folks out there spreading love and wholesomeness in an anxiety-ridden and anger-filled Twitterverse — to the people representing the goodness and kindness of Jesus in our divided world. While Twitter is a place I don’t know I can return to, it also represents for me the various fears and anxieties that drive human beings to hate and hurt one another. But I believe this hate and hurt yearns for healing — a healing work that addresses the realities that condition anxiety and violence, and steps into these conditions to empathize with those who suffer.
In this way, I hope Twitter changes. I hope social media, in general, becomes a means for flourishing and hope, not a structure of domination and greed. But this begins with doing healing work beyond the Twitterverse, and pursuing this work in the actual communities we find ourselves in beyond social media. This means pursuing healing in our homes, churches, schools, workplaces, and public spaces. Because when we pursue tangible, embodied healing, it will affect and regeneratively transform every other sphere of life — social media and everything beyond it.
I end with a quote from my friend
, who so beautifully writes:The redemptive and empathic possibilities of the internet ultimately are not found on our screens, but rather in our physical bodies and relationships with one another through tangible actions of seeking justice, acting mercifully, practicing compassion, and loving both our neighbors and our enemies.5
And this, my friends, is the work we are called to do: neighborly love.
Oliver Darcy, “How Twitter’s algorithm is amplifying extreme political rhetoric,” CNN Business.
Makena Kelly, “Donald Trump tweets incited Capitol violence, Twitter employee tells January 6th Committee,” The Verge.
Emphasis added.
Willie Jennings, After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging (Eerdmans).
Amar Peterman, “How the Metaverse will Pull Us Further Apart,” Sojourners.