Ask HN: Is it just me or is Twitter pretty good these days?

20 points by abhinav22 4 years ago | 22 comments

I am enjoying Twitter a lot. I use it for maybe 5 minutes every few days (no notifications so I only login when I remember), and I see some interesting posts from people I like, press a couple of hearts and a retweet here or there.

Because I get to choose who I am following and it’s relatively impersonal so I don’t feel obliged to reply / acknowledge the message and so forth. The benefits of one to many communication.

So I wanted to ask if this was a general trend and more people are enjoying Twitter, more in a relative sense in comparison to its own history and in comparison to its peers in social media.

kypro 4 years ago |

It can be good if you use it right.

I like to create lists so I can segment the content I consume. There are a lot of really cool "communities" and users on Twitter tweeting about practically every niche thing you might be interested in (often in real time). I have lists for different tech content (security, web dev, etc), finance, art, psychology, personal friends, and a few political ones (local, political memes/jokes, interesting political commentators).

When politics gets too toxic and I can mostly filter out that side of Twitter by just checking the lists that focus on tech, etc. I wouldn't recommend just going to the homepage and seeing what Twitter feeds you. I also wouldn't recommend reading comments or commenting as people are very cruel in comments on Twitter and rarely respond to anything in good faith.

The reason I personally still use it is because I've found it very good at proving a feed for the latest news within certain niches. I really value this with tech news and finance news. Other places like HN can be good for reading about the latest tech news too, but generally things only get picked up here when a media outlet has reported on the story and although the quality is higher a lot of it is dated and can be years old -- it's still interesting, just different.

mattbrewsbytes 4 years ago | |

What do you use to segment content?

I'm like the OP and browse every few days, never post anything just use it to see things from a mix of widely dispersed interests. There is a very low limit for me where when I add another person/group/whatever the feed becomes noisy.

I have spent 0 time looking for an alternative client.

Tomte 4 years ago | | |

Twitter lists (built-in), and then tweetdeck.twitter.com is my recommendation.

failedcoder 4 years ago |

I find it pretty toxic tbh, there's always some sort of drama going on but occasionally I find some good things that are worth using twitter for

ksaj 4 years ago | |

It can be, but isn't always. I'm a veteran infosec guy (since the mid-90's), and I have zero interest in the infosec twitter feed because all I ever hear about it from my colleagues is how laden it is with drama.

I keep connected, but just not on the specialized soap-box lists because I have so little interest in other peoples' pet peeves and incessant need to present themselves as superior.

It's also why I like HN and not Reddit. Baggage should always be discouraged.

torben-friis 4 years ago |

I use it almost as a newsfeed for things like small artists I like releasing new albums. News that I wouldn't get otherwise.

It's really not a social network I think. Communication is not really different to YouTube comment feeds, where there are people with social standing leaving messages and literally thousands commenting with no hope of ever getting a reply (unless they're socially relevant themselves).

I can't shake the feeling of being part of the masses when I use it, with my role in it being at most leaving a +1 in someone's followers/likes/retweets. Way less interactive than an old school forum, or HN, for example.

abhinav22 4 years ago | |

Thanks, that’s a good perspective

superfamicom 4 years ago |

Twitter can be really great if you take the time to curate who you follow and don’t get overly upset when accounts share things outside of what they do (like a pixel artist sharing random photos, etc.) and avoid the trending section. I’m aware of the toxic portions, but it really can be as easy as not engaging with those accounts.

DerekBickerton 4 years ago |

I don't follow anyone. I created a bunch of private lists with different categories like 'Techpress', 'Privacy', 'Crypto geeks', 'Motormouths', 'Funny / Memes' etc

Then if I feel like consuming memes, I will open the meme list. If I'm feeling creative and need inspiration, I may open 'Tech / Design'. It depends on how I feel. My account is also private, and I don't feel the need to chase fame or even interact with anyone. Most people don't even see that as an option they have and blindly (and publicly) interact as much as possible without considering a more private alternative.

tango-unchained 4 years ago |

Twitter has great tech content and really isn't any more toxic than other social media (and remember, HN is social media too!). For instance, foone threads regularly apear on HN. A lot of the hate here IMO is just people's rationalized politic opinions and not having the discipline to avoid being baited into the politics side of the website. Which again, only has the same problems as getting into political arguments elsewhere online. I have seen plenty of flamewars here too, especially last year.

I have had a really good experience with the platform and actually met friends with my super niche interests that way. It's how I keep up with people in my small academic field in an informal way and talk about the human side of doing science. Also, I believe my papers have gotten more attention since posting there.

The only thing I'm not a huge fan of is how replying boosts posts and there's no downvote. It leads to noobs getting baited into responding to trolling or low effort content and giving it a ton of attention. However, everyone knows about that after their first month on the platform and uses workarounds so it isn't an issue.

Tomte 4 years ago |

I've begun to enjoy Twitter since I've started to unfollow everyone, put interesting people in topical lists, use Tweetdeck, very rarely engage with anyone, almost only read, and remove people as soon as they annoy me.

Even with all this culling I still add more people to my lists than remove people from them.

Also, go to Twitter a few times a day, not every few minutes.

kowlo 4 years ago |

I had a great experience with Twitter in its very early days. It seemed like I was connecting with actual people that cared and had time to interact with one another.

My experience now is that it's mostly accounts chasing fame, and bots retweeting bots.

It seems that people are afraid to be themselves on social media too - perhaps for good reason.

Graffur 4 years ago |

I think Twitter is awful. I just use it to get up to date opinions and memes on TV shows or sports I am watching.

risedotmoe 4 years ago |

In my experience all social media, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, ect. are all incredibly toxic and the most toxic people are backed by toxic moderators.

Nobody is genuine, people say things for upvotes and validation so now everybody has a political agenda. This creates mobs that shout people out of their echo chambers for good think points. Everybody is hopped up on dopamine being cruel to each other and they’re addicted.

Id like to this hackernews is different, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. The voting system isn’t good think bad think here it’s good for discussion/bad for discussion.

jimmygrapes 4 years ago | |

In my opinion the best thing about HN is that I am never told when someone responds to me. I don't sit there refreshing threads to see if I get a response, and there's no obvious/easy way to check up on my own posts later on without losing too much context. At first this galled me because I couldn't hold a conversation, but now I generally just say my piece and hope it helps or intrigues someone else. Sometimes I might search myself a few months later to see if I triggered more info, but it's not a real time thing, AND THAT'S OK.

yen223 4 years ago | |

Talking up echo chambers and how HN is special and not like other social media is certainly a great way to get karma on HN.

marto1 4 years ago |

I'd say it can be pretty good if you can maintain good digital hygiene(as you pointed out with notifs, etc.). So it's actually pretty bad for most people :-)

paulddraper 4 years ago |

Except for specifically following personalities/celebrities, I can't see the advantage of Twitter over Reddit.

tmaly 4 years ago |

I think you can create a really good experience on Twitter by being very careful about who you follow.

I cleaned up my follow list to only follow those who I would want to see something from everyday.

This even meant dropping some friends who would only retweet politics.

dbish 4 years ago |

Twitter’s topic modeling is really bad (and seems to be getting worse), but I still like using the feed to interact with people, just wish they’d either build better models or get rid of surfacing topics.

A3mercury 4 years ago |

I keep 3 separate Twitter accounts for different things. One is super free of toxicity because it’s all about tech. One is political and wow…. It’s pretty bad.

type0 4 years ago |

It is just you