Couple of days ago, I realised I have published 300 posts. Too less considering I love to write and it’s been 11 years now that I birthed mirchiladdoo.com. Me being lazy is the primary reason. Secondary reason is my addiction to Work & Twitter. If I am engrossed in my work, I have never set boundaries or limits of 8/9 hours, weekdays/weekends. The lines have blurred anyway after working from home.
Some people (me) would argue that even if I haven’t published anything on mirchiladdoo.com, I have been quite active on twitter. With over 300K tweets (which includes retweets), I have been very vocal about my opinions. Twitter being a micro blogging site, some would (again me) say that bite sized opinions also should count as writing.
However, the addiction to twitter has nothing to do with the freedom of voicing my opinion or saying my thoughts out loud or sharing my likes and dislikes. What started as an opportunity to divert myself from a painful chapter in my life, soon became a platform to meet like minded people, sharing ideas and have fun filled conversations with them. Sometimes, it did affect my reputation at work because I always had the phone in my hand. Not that I let it impact my work in anyway (I am blessed with good speed & good comprehension skills, hence able to complete my work in half the time it requires other people) Being a loner in real life, suffering from inferiority complex and other issues, I would say twitter gave me wings. While in real life I wouldn’t approach anyone for talking, it is the other way round on twitter. I love talking (Talkative was the favourite adjective of my teachers for me) and my writing skills are better than my verbal skills. While not many people have shown interest in me in real life, I have more than 3000 followers on twitter (of course I am always greedy for more). People willingly talking to me, forging friendships and generally getting a vibe of being liked is addictive.
It’s not all bed of roses though. There are cons to twitter as much as for any other thing. If you get unconditional like, you also get abuse and hate from this platform. Height was the period between 2015-2017 where I was hotly pursued by a psycho stalker. It robbed the peace of my mind, made me really insecure, I was constantly frustrated and angry. I know I did not handle that chapter of my life well. And I often thought of deactivating twitter and remove myself from this hateful person. But it was all words. It was difficult to throw away all the pros just for that one hateful, immature person.
There is another con of being addicted to twitter. You indulge yourself in tweeting, reading tweets of other people, reacting on those tweets and what they now call “doom scrolling” that unknowingly you waste your time (just like people do by scrolling metres of reels). Wasted time never comes back. If you just calculate the amount of time spent on social media, you will realise how much of it is wasted. You could have done something more productive with your time. Maybe written a blog post like this, which satisfies the writer in you. Maybe you could cook something new. Maybe you could read one more book or watch one more movie. or even look at cat pictures (meow)
It is not that I have never taken a break from twitter (not counting the hours I sleep :p ) Earlier in 2022, I had to undergo cataract surgery (more on that some other time) and I was strictly advised to stay away from any kind of screen for few weeks. But that was a forced break. And again, in 2023, with the new limit of viewing and writing tweets for non paying twitter users, I am thinking of taking a break from twitter. It is just off putting when you have to restrict how much you read and how much you write on twitter. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise. Maybe I will write more posts on mirchiladdoo.com. Maybe I will be tad more disciplined. One can always hope, eh?
I was looking up if I have written anything on “break” and this question popped up. What comes to your mind when you think of the word “break”?
