I deleted my Twitter/X account three or so weeks ago. I don’t have much interesting to say about that. But I have noticed the compulsion to package my thoughts into tweet/joke form recede in that time, and I have something more like a hunger for complexity. I found Twitter tended to reduce that complexity (I’m not new in saying this). This post is already longer than a tweet, and I haven’t said much.

The interesting thing about deleting your twitter account is that you get a month to go back on that decision, to reopen your account. There’s a reminder in my to-do list app today to decide whether I really want to delete my twitter account, so that month deadline is approaching. It’s a good design decision, preventing accidental deleting or letting someone retrieve a photo or a link they meant to save before deleting. But the month leeway is something like a built-in allowance for relapsing.

There’s of course some ambivalence to deleting my twitter. I have met lots of people and made many connections there. It was a fun place to make jokes and share writing. But after a while I found that Twitter gave me only anxiety and anger, and eventually it felt like those feelings were what drew me back to the website. I felt a compulsion to post yet a deep shame around everything that I posted. I don’t think I’m alone in feeling the insecurity produced on Twitter, where a lack of response feels worse than negativity (and, in a sense, the point is to receive as much negativity as possible, to become the “main character”). Everything I could say felt insufficient yet there weren’t enough characters to say everything I wanted to say. And when I decided to stop tweeting but kept scrolling, every day was just an attempt to find the thing that would make me inordinately angry or annoyed, because it was stupid, because it was vile, because it was essay-of-the-week at The Cut.

That someone would seek out rather than avoid feelings that range from shame to anger, insecurity to annoyance, makes sense to anyone who has read even the first few pages of Sigmund Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Freud calls this “unpleasure,” and perceptually, it feels better to feel that than nothing at all. By pointing this out, I’m not saying I’m better for quitting Twitter or that I’ve found a way to live in pure pleasure, having escaped the death drive. No, I think after a while, I just found the unpleasure provided by Twitter less tolerable or less interesting, and I find my unpleasure elsewhere now.

Even while it’s owned by Elon Musk, I don’t necessarily think that others should get off the platform. There are many reasons to stay on Twitter, just like there are many reasons to leave it. Even after removing the app from my phone, setting up the app and website blockers, shaming myself with ScreenTime data, I found it took up more of my mental space than I would like. That I describe the thirty-day grace period to undelete your account as an opportunity to “relapse” probably means that on some level I experienced my use of the platform as an addiction. Staying locked into such a dynamic only offers the fantasy of some future mastery—If I keep on tweeting, I will somehow win at the platform, whatever that means—that will likely never come.

Anyway, I hope all my Twitter friends are doing well! If you happen upon this post, I would love to chat sometime. No rush. Until then, keep up the fort-da for me. As with all games, remember: it’s not about winning; it’s about having fun.