The Twitter boycott on April 9 really focused my attention on how Twitter seems to be a trauma displacement tool for a lot of people.

No judgment in that, just calling awareness to it.

I think perhaps asking for an end to abusive dynamics here is difficult for some people to accept because this is where they come to enact their abuse cycles -- or their Karpman drama triangles (victim, hero, rescuer.)

Anyway I think that with the harassment and abuse crisis here, the origin point is a public mental health crisis that people are unwittingly playing out on social media.

Now that I have studied more psychology it's impossible not to see abuse dynamics in how people choose to publicly communicate here -- how most arguments are clearly triggered by personal traumas, how identity gets threatened and debated, gaslighting (ofc) and so much more.

Those observations have really changed how I see this app/site. I don't see a lot of beneficial spaces that make room for thriving, encouragement and personal growth. Yes there are funny moments and it's wonderful to hear about new books etc but this is a dragging-down place rn.

And of course there are so many (so many!) good people here looking for ideas and connection, but increasingly I wonder if that's possible any more as it used to be. Twitter feels very...unhealed.

I guess where I'm going with this is that I've really been enjoying my writing classes and my psychology studies and generally just *growing* and it's hard to find that signal to pick up. What gets amplified here is conflict and abuse rather than progress and change.

Anyway I do believe this momentary meditation means it makes sense to take some time away and start reducing touch points with a place that has really become ...and perhaps will always now be ... focusing on stuckness and regression rather than being where ppl come for growth.

Maybe others will see this same mental health issue with how communication *now* works here and what kind of toxicity is rewarded. The Ratio and Main Character don't seem...interesting? Or useful? So many good minds wasted on silly dynamics like that.

I may drop in for the occasional RT or cat tweet etc -- it's a distancing, not a full hiatus.

But I do hope there will be some wider recognition of what personality characteristics this app increasingly rewards and what that means for (lack of) connection and mental health.

Instagram specifically programmed its algorithm to serve diet content to people who were searching for communities on eating disorders.

Social media is a business model and it will exploit anyone's mental health for profit. https://twitter.com/JoeWestby/status/1382620764998922243

I'm watching an incredible seminar on gaslighting taught by Dr Ramani and the overlap of narcissistic, gaslighting behavior and social media replies is off the charts.

Interesting point: People who are gaslighted as children/suffer abandonment trauma are easier to gaslight.

This is the end game of a lot of social-media gaslighting:

To wear the target down to a self-questioning nub. Remember that narcissists and gaslighters often enlist allies known as "flying monkeys" to hurt the target; the allies think the gaslighter will like them (he won't).

And this "societal gaslighting" saying bias does not exist -- think of how often the meninists, transphobes, the Bari Weisses and Taibbis and Greenwalds of Twitter -- say things like this.

Good practice: Remember not to gaslight other people (on social media or elsewhere)

Ha! She just said "watch out for social media, that's where a lot of gaslighting happens."

She also calls out Instagram influencers (fakers) who edit and curate images of a perfect (fake) life, which gaslights other people.