My sister is an incredibly hardworking senior teacher at a comprehensive school in Sheffield, and has a full workload. She’s busy juggling very real work that has a significant impact on future generations of young people, which involves persuading teenagers to read the classics rather than over-exposing their mental health on the internet.
So when I first called her a few years ago to ask for another gig managing my Twitter account, I felt appropriately embarrassed and pretentious.
Since she’s the kind of person who likes to be ingratiated with others, I complied and have now devised a system whereby I can only access Account X if she is kind enough to send me the code from her phone. As a journalist and editor, I need Account X for both important work (like finding writers to commission) and not-so-important work (like promoting my crazy column), so I often pester her for the code.
“Why would I push this on my sister?” you may ask. To be clear, it’s not because I’m overwhelmed by the traffic from my mere 400 followers. It’s because unfettered access to X accounts is literally driving me crazy. In fact, when I chronicle my biggest mental health declines over the past few years, most of them coincide with excessive use of the platform.
This is for two reasons. First, X is a particular weakness for OCD, which is often characterised by persistent feelings of guilt and an obsessive urge to verify things. The black-and-white nature of discussions about X, where simply liking or retweeting something you disagree with could get you hauled out of the village by a pitchfork-wielding mob, sends my OCD into overdrive.
Whenever I’m on a platform, I’m constantly terrified that my fingers will slip, my brain will malfunction, or I’ll accidentally retweet something harmful or offensive and end my career, lose all my friends (miserable? Me? Absolutely!), or become X’s “Person of the Day” and trend worldwide because of how awful I am (my biggest fear!).
The second reason isn’t specific to OCD: X makes me feel bad because I love it so much. Unlike Instagram, Facebook, or any other platform, X is dangerous to me because it taps perfectly into my reward circuitry.
As a typical bully-turned-aspiring-writer, I don’t care much about being pretty or popular — the traits Instagram and TikTok value most — but I do want to post witty asides and heartfelt, passionate opinions that people will find amusing or surprising.
I want so badly to be good at X, and every little bit of validation I receive on a platform – a like, a retweet, a comment – makes me so happy that I crave more, yet I’m terrified that if I make one wrong move, I’ll lose what little digital goodwill I’ve earned.
The intensity of this tightrope walk can be excruciating. I’ve noticed that when I spend too much time on the platform, my entire state of mind begins to shift. I start thinking through my tweets, imagining how to frame a totally mundane interaction I’ve had as a funny anecdote. My tolerance for nuance is subtly eroded, and I find myself feeling not just angry, but outraged more quickly.
Too much of X causes me to sink into cynicism and self-loathing, leading to feelings of hopelessness and bouts of depression, so by putting up a barrier between me and my destructive addiction, my sister is performing the ultimate act of family service.
With X in the spotlight after Elon Musk’s platform for far-right misinformation dangerously fueled unrest in the UK, many are lamenting the Twitter of old. As a journalist, I know I should be included, but I have to admit that I’m not. Nothing would make me more relieved than a complete collapse of X. My sister needs a day off.