from Hacker News

Addicted to Twitter

by dpearson on 5/25/13, 5:37 PM with 5 comments

• by mikestew on 5/25/13, 7:17 PM

  Slot machines, FarmVille, Twitter feeds, I think they all work the same: push a button, you might get a reward. I'll leave it to the armchair psychologists (or even real ones) to put a label on it, but that's the commonality I see in my own behavior. Or maybe it's just the constant influx of stimulation, I don't know.

  What I do know is learning to sit and do nothing is valuable. When data-connected phones came out, I thought it a boon because never again would I need simply stand in line. I could check email, surf the web, fill that time with something of "value". Then I realized that, for me, checking a Twitter feed isn't of any more value than just standing there aware of what's going on around me.

• by dudus on 5/25/13, 7:48 PM

  You say that you quit in the past and still find yourself in this situation. It's time to quit for good. Delete your account and never look back. Don't worry if your are missing out something, eventually this feeling to check everything will fade. I delieted my facebook and twitter account about 2 months ago. It was taking up too much of my time and I'm glad I did. I still use Google+ but I feel like it doesn't take as much time from me as the other networks, I don't even check it every day.

• by k-mcgrady on 5/25/13, 10:29 PM

  I took breaks from Twitter a few times but always quickly got back to my previous unhealthy usage. The way I finally stopped was to delete my account. Simple. I eventually created a new one when I wanted to go back but abandoned that after realising I had zero followers and building back to the previous level would take too long.