Last November, I started shifting my online networking from Twitter to Mastodon — Whither Twitter? Mastodon has now become my social network of choice. I’m starting to have better conversations though it’s not as active as my Twitter feed used to be, but that’s to be expected with 20 times fewer followers and I only follow about one fifth as many people as I did on Twitter. I will continue to invest in better conversations and knowledge sharing on Mastodon because it’s a platform I can trust.
For 15 years Twitter had been my go-to professional social network. The hell-scape that is now Twitter should be a wake-up call to take better control of our social networks. I have not deleted my account there because I do not want someone else to take my identity @hjarche. It’s now just a place I check every few days and post notices like my upcoming PKM workshop.
Mastodon is now the primary source for my Friday’s Finds monthly curated posts, such as the recent, ‘no unpleasant aftertaste‘. A recent comment by @Maria explains why Mastodon may be growing slowly, “If you’re wondering why there are so few news stories about the rise of Mastodon, it’s because nobody is getting paid to game the media about it. There’s no publicists, no cozy ad deals, no suits, no coercion: Nobody is getting rich off of Mastodon … that’s also why it’s so enlightening and fun to participate here.” Given that Twitter (now called X) feeds and posts are locked unless you log in, having open feeds makes Mastodon better suited for curation and sharing. Mastodon uses real simple syndication (RSS) to make open sharing easy.
I have said that machines are tools and not our friends, but open covenant tools like Mastodon and the rest of the fediverse make it easier for us to be friendly in an online space. For over a decade, Twitter was an important tool for my learning. I don’t think it will even make this year’s Top Ten List.
Good luck over on Mastodon. You’ve done the right thing. It’s unbelievable how much Twitter has changed over the years and such a pity that it is now a completely different platform. I’m not going to lie, I do miss the conversations and the people on Twitter but the idea of starting it all back up again if I ever needed to feels so overwhelming and pointless for me as I feel I’m a different person to what I was back then. Mastodon seems to be the better and safer choice.
I too, am not sure how long I will continue with this. So far, Mastodon works for me, but it’s a very different experience from the early days of Twitter