Backing Away from Twitter

I’ve used Twitter for years. I’ve found interesting links and things to read. I’ve met great people, including other iOS developers. Twitter helped me find work when I shifted from full-time employment to independent contracting. It even helped me find good people to work with when I needed icon design.

Late last year, I was beginning to feel overwhelmed. We’d just moved to a new city, started new jobs, bought a new house, had a new baby. Then the baby needed open-heart surgery and we spent a month in the hospital. Oh, and we had to deal with a health insurance company that has fought us every step of the way. I won’t say which one of those last two was more stressfull.

During this time, I began to understand how much time and attention I gave to Twitter. Even if I just wanted to keep up with all the Apple developer news, it was exhausting. Not to mention all the simultaneous conversations, the “um actuallys”, the shouting and unkindness. Even though I was simply a bystander in 99% of it, it began to feel like a heavy weight around my shoulders. And I needed this energy to focus on my family’s situation.

So, I haven’t posted to Twitter since late last year. I stopped reading my timeline. Then I took Tweetbot off my phone. It feels like there were a thousand voices in my head, and now they’ve vanished. It feels… peaceful. I have regained a little focus and a little sanity.

I’m going to dust of my RSS reader and consume news that way. I still want to post microblog-style updates, but I think I’ll just do them on this website. It’s likely that no one will read them, and that’s okay.

If you @-mention me on Twitter, I’ll see it eventually and will reply. Take care and be well.

🗣

@ThatRussDavis hey man, thanks for checking in. Thankfully Baby is doing great. Next open heart surgery will be June or July.

Beards are not unsanitary→

Two gems from the summary:

Workers with facial hair were less likely to be colonized with Staph- ylococcus aureus (41.2% vs 52.6%, P 1⁄4 0.02) and meticillin-resistant coagulase-negative staphylococci (2.0% vs 7.0%, P 1⁄4 0.01).

And,

Overall, colonization is similar in male healthcare workers with and without facial hair; however, certain bacterial species were more prevalent in workers without facial hair.