I started a new Mastodon account when I created this website. I had the option of transferring over my existing followers and … uh, followees?1 I chose not to do that. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy what the people I previously followed were posting; it’s more that there was too much of it, and I simply couldn’t keep up with it all.
One of the great benefits of Mastodon (assuming you ignore “Trending”) is that it’s a reverse chronological feed sans a recommendation algorithm. Unlike the bottomless pit of villainy and despair more commonly known as Twitter, your Mastodon feed has an endpoint – at least, in theory. Once you follow more than fifty active posters on Mastodon, you might never reach your feed’s endpoint. There’s nothing wrong with that if you have good impulse control and a continuous stream of fresh posts is what you want. But if you, like me, have a problem with compulsive scrolling, endpoints are a good thing.
At the moment of writing this post, I only follow fifteen people on Mastodon.2 I also follow less than a handful of niche, low-activity hashtags. What this means for me in practice is that entire hours often go by without anything new appearing in my feed. It also means that when I check my feed in the morning upon waking, it only takes me around ten minutes or so to reach posts I’ve already seen. Seeing old posts is a trigger for me to get up and do something else. I no longer fritter away precious hours of my life scrolling through an endless buffet of Mastodon posts.
Another benefit of having a small feed is that I feel like I can actually get to know more of the people I follow.3 Back when I followed an unmanageable number of accounts on Mastodon, I engaged with them much less than I do now. I’m not entirely sure why that is, but I suspect the fact that compulsive scrolling is a mindless, passive activity for me has something to do with it. When I’m scrolling through an endless feed, it’s almost like my brain enters low power mode; I might throw out a boost if I really like a post, but I seldom pause to leave a comment, because commenting takes effort, and scrolling is effortless. Having less stuff to scroll through gives me more time to stop and think about what I’m looking at, and that more often than not leads to conversation.
It feels great to engage with social media in a way that’s more intentional. Next step: finally kicking that unhealthy Reddit habit!
Footnotes
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“It is at this point that normal language gives up, and goes and has a drink.” — Sir Terry Pratchett ↩
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I’m not sure yet what my official cap will be, but I think I’ll try to limit the number of people I follow to around twenty-five. ↩
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It reminds me of my LiveJournal days, in a way. I followed complete strangers back then as well, but because we all regularly talked with one another (gasp! imagine!), we quickly became friends. ↩