Comment no more

I wrote in January about the effects that my Twitter habit was having on my mood and since deleting my “PEI list” that contained hundreds of people and organizations with roots on the Island, my mood improved immeasurably. I took it a bit further and unfollowed even more, and if it weren’t for @Asymco I might not use Twitter at all.

The fact that their language started to enter my lexicon was reason enough (to classify is to be human, but to oversimplify risks objectifying), but their constant yelling, “vitriol, virtue signalling, and an endless stream of all that is wrong with the world” was depressing.

Online discussion amongst strangers is largely dead I think and best avoided.

The only real source of Canadian news that I read is the CBC website, I can’t stomach many of the big city papers and the local Guardian doesn’t seem worth paying for. Lately, the comment section has been over-run with angry angry people, maybe it always has been, but I found a decent antidote to them polluting what is otherwise a rather pedestrian read.

I installed a safari extension that deletes all comment sections on most websites I visit. That, plus the ad-blocker I use removes all many of the current annoyances of the web, and makes for a faster loading, more satisfying reading experience.