Unfollowing Everybody →

Anil Dash recently took the step of unfollowing everyone he was following on Twitter. This line in particular stood out to me:

... when something terrible happens in the news, I don't see an endless, repetitive stream of dozens of people reacting to it in succession. It turns out, I don't mind knowing about current events, but it _hurts_ to see lots of people I care about going through anguish or pain when bad news happens. I want to optimize for being aware, but not emotionally overwhelmed.

That’s entirely it. I’ve got a private list of maybe 20 people I follow because they’re the ones that are the least outraged about The Thing That People Are Outraged About Today, and it’s recently become my main view for Twitter because I’m too exhausted (emotionally, spiritually) for the main timeline.

See also Matt Haughey’s recent announcement I’m done with Twitter.