Deleting the app was step one. Going private was step two. Here’s why Bluesky, the methadone to Twitter’s heroin, was the step that finally got me off X.
Do algorithms or content cause social media addiction?
Bellwether trial will test claims that Facebook, Instagram and YouTube designed addictive platforms that harmed young users.
The social media site once known as Twitter is a shell of its former self, overrun by explicit bigotry, fascist memes and scams. Yet a number of liberals, leftists and “normies” still regularly use Elon Musk’s site, tacitly contributing to his larger far-right political project.
Are you a “Very Online” poster who feels like leaving X but can’t break the habit? I’m here to help. Without intending to, I followed three steps in the first half of the 2020s that made it very easy to quit using the site.
First, delete the app off your phone. Second, make your account private. Third, get on Bluesky.
I had known for years that I spent way too much time on Twitter, but it was only in late 2020 that I realized the depth of my addictive relationship with the site, when one of the thousands of dumb jokes I posted over the years went mega viral.
I was on a walk when the tweet – a mildly amusing joke about romcoms during the pandemic – took off. I remember looking at my phone every few minutes and running my thumb down the screen to reload my notifications, each time revealing dozens of new favs, retweets and unfunny replies from strangers making similar follow-up jokes.
After an hour or so of this, I noticed that I wasn’t checking for the newest posts anymore – I was only reloading my notifications. Uh-oh.
Addicted to the notification nudge
For years, I had told myself that my Twitter habit was at least serving some larger purpose: keeping me up to date with the latest news item, cute animal pic or silly joke to mildly chuckle at. I was actually getting something from all that scrolling, right?
But it turns out I was hooked on the stimulus, not the substance; a meaningless notification was enough to satisfy my craving. I wanted a dopamine hit delivered from my phone, regardless of whether it had any substance. I wasn’t addicted to funny little jokes or news updates but simply to getting nudged. So, step one: I admitted that I had a problem and deleted the Twitter app from my phone on New Year’s Day.
This was far from cold turkey, as I still logged into Twitter via my phone’s browser multiple times a day (plus kept using the site on my laptop). But without notifications, the site’s lure faded once the blue bird icon wasn’t on my home screen. And logging out when I’d had enough added friction to getting my next hit.
Having been laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic, I made my account private so potential employers couldn’t find my potentially embarrassing old posts (or potentially embarrassing new posts!).
Locking my account was a practical step toward gaining employment, but it had unanticipated effects on my Twitter addiction. Going private meant that I couldn’t be retweeted, so the site’s main “gamified” hook – getting RTed means you won the internet today, good sir! – was gone. It also ended my arguments with strangers, the most pointless way to waste time online. Step two: Lock it down!
Bluesky reminds me of what Twitter once was
A few days after Trump’s reelection in 2024 (with the help of at least $250 million in campaign cash from Musk), a friend asked me to join Bluesky with her. I’m no early adopter, so I hadn’t signed up for Bluesky during the previous waves of defection after Musk bought Twitter and rebranded it X.
Bluesky is basically a Twitter clone (with some technical differences I don’t really understand). It looks and works almost exactly like Twitter did circa 2017; even the color scheme is the same. The main difference is that the people posting on Bluesky in 2026 are more boring and less funny than the people who were on Twitter in its heyday.
But that’s a good thing. Bluesky is the methadone to the heroin of Twitter – it satisfies the craving without getting you high.
I had a lot of fun on Twitter over the years (the “woke alligator” tweet, Juicero, 30 to 50 feral hogs), but it also rewired my brain for the worse and twice helped Trump become president. Surely many recovering alcoholics and drug addicts can also look back fondly on fun nights with their weirdo friends, but life is better when you’re sober and working the program.
Being on Bluesky doesn’t deliver delirious highs, but it also doesn’t lead to crushing lows. Its users are almost entirely Twitter exiles who quit post-Musk, which means there isn’t the cornucopia of insane takes found on Old Twitter. The main factions are annoying leftists who hate Chuck Schumer, annoying liberals who hate Chuck Schumer and annoying furries who hate Chuck Schumer.
Twitter once mattered – something interesting, entertaining or important happened there most days. But that time is long past. I don’t think anything important has ever happened on Bluesky. One anonymous wag wrote that the site was “a niche’s niche for people who can’t quit. This is posting hospice.” Amen.
If you aren’t a fan of Trump and Musk, there is no reason to still be on X. Your continued presence there helps the reactionary movement led by humanity’s first trillionaire. Moreover, the site is actively bad for you. You might think that passively imbibing unmoderated hateful far-right posts is just the cost of entry, but reading all that garbage is subtly shaping how you see the world.
X’s liberal and leftist users, who stay mainly out of habit and addiction, are the only force keeping it from becoming just another Gab or Truth Social. Thankfully, anyone who is jonesing to reload the feed on a microblogging social media app now has a viable safe alternative. Step three: Get on Bluesky.
Time to vote with your feet. Follow my three steps and move into the Old Posters’ Home. The water is tepid – which is just fine by me.
Aryeh Cohen-Wade hosts the podcast “Culturally Determined” and writes the newsletter Links I Like.