Why I abandoned Social Media

As you might have noticed I abandoned Twitter for more than over a month now. I deactivated the account as soon as it was clear Elon Musk overtook the enterprise. But why did I do that?

Too much power

At first I observed the ongoing process of Elon Musk buying Twitter skeptically. It took quite some time, but I knew: As soon as this man will have another enterprise in his portfolio he will have way too much in his hands. He owns Tesla, SpaceX, now Twitter and some other big corporations in different industries. I’m convinced one person shouldn’t have so much power over different branches of life of so many people since all people are fallible. And as soon as one person has so much power, every failure in judgment will have capital consequences.

Poor judgment

The second reason to abandon Twitter was Elon Musks poor judgment concerning the wide field of „free speech“. Several times he showed that he didn’t have enough insight that some people shouldn’t be given the leap of faith they will behave well in the future. Take Donald Trump, take Kanye West or others: Some just don’t mean well. But Musk wanted to give them a podium nevertheless – and he failed badly as you can see with West, who violated the rules of sanity and reason just hours after given back his Twitter account.

Waste of time

But the ultimate reason to lay off Twitter and most of other social media is waste of time. Yes, it’s funny to read jokes. Yes, it’s funny to watch toddlers or animals in clumsy situations. Yes, it’s great to chat with other people about their opinions. And I have put a lot of time into entertaining myself with this stuff – I joined Twitter in April 2008, Facebook some time in 2009.

But in the end it isn’t worth my time anymore. I abandoned Facebook in 2018, now it’s Twitter. I want to focus on important topics and that’s not entertaining myself, but doing something of meaning. Music, philosophy, science, literature.

Or as my friend Ingo Vogelmann puts it: Good bye bullshit. Think for yourself, if social media is worth your time. I feel way better now.

If you need to contact me, there is Soundcloud, there is e-mail or, if you’re lucky to have my number, my phone. I’ll be waiting for you.