Ever heard of those juice detoxes that people in the health and fitness world talk about? And (while not scientifically backed) they make you feel better afterward? The same can be applied in the digital world with a data detox. And a little birdy told me I needed to take a break. Did the Twitter bird actually tell me that? No. The Twitter bird honestly would have probably told me to stay, but deep down I knew that it had to be done.
For this five-day detox, I struggled to decide what to give up. This was not because I have formed an attachment with my personal accounts or because I simply didn’t want to, but because so much of what I do for my major, my clubs and organizations, and my personal brand is based on being present on social media. Finally, after much debate, I decided to say goodbye to my old friend, the Twitter Bird, and give up Twitter (now “X”) mainly because I use Twitter for purely personal use. This detox would allow me to give something up and notice how I was functioning without it while still allowing me to do my job elsewhere. This still would be no easy feat. I have been on Twitter for so long that I have yet to make the switch to calling it “X” and I will not let the Twitter bird die.
At the start of these five days, I found myself longing to go on Twitter more because I was no longer allowed to. I had to be very conscious about not opening the app in my rotation between social media platforms. I found myself missing the banter and the convenience of being able to check in on unimportant news like, “is Spotify down right now?” But the week moved on and so did I. By day four, it was like I never had Twitter to begin with. I found that of all apps, Twitter wasn’t that important to me. I originally downloaded it in high school because everyone else had it and I usually opened it when I was bored and wanted something other than Instagram to look at. Throughout the years, it became a normal part of my day but now that it wasn’t, I realized how much I didn’t really need it. By the end of my 5 days, my twitter usage for the week was only 7 minutes (those 7 minutes being from the night prior to the start of my detox). However, my minutes were up on Instagram and TikTok from taking the time that I would’ve taken on Twitter and putting it towards them.
“A digital detox is ‘not the solution, for the same reason that wearing a gas mask for two days a week outside isn’t the answer to pollution. It might, for a short period of time, keep, at an individual level, certain effects at bay. But it’s not sustainable, and it doesn’t address the systemic issues.’ He said out attention is being deeply altered by huge invasive forces in the wider society.”
– Johann Hari, in an interview with James Williams
After this week and realizing it wasn’t as important to me as I thought, will I ever truly leave Twitter? Honestly, probably not. Because it’s true, this is only a temporary solution to an issue that is so deeply rooted in our environment that in the long run, a detox is not a sustainable fix. But knowing I don’t truly need it as much might make me less inclined to be drawn to the app and all the buzz that comes with it.
Madison Vale 
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