{"id":5795,"date":"2023-03-13T06:39:10","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T06:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businessner.com\/?p=5795"},"modified":"2023-03-13T06:39:10","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T06:39:10","slug":"does-your-twitter-bring-you-joy-on-taking-back-our-social-media-feeds-with-prune-your-follows-founder-benedicte-raae","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businessner.com\/does-your-twitter-bring-you-joy-on-taking-back-our-social-media-feeds-with-prune-your-follows-founder-benedicte-raae\/","title":{"rendered":"Does your Twitter bring you joy? On taking back our social media feeds with Prune Your Follows Founder Benedicte Raae"},"content":{"rendered":"
Social media can be a treasure trove of exciting conversations, people, and networks, but it can quickly become overwhelming<\/a> or dull<\/a> — especially if you have a trigger-happy-follow habit! Your friends, family, or the accounts you really value can be drowned out by the noise.<\/p>\n Recently featured on TechCrunch<\/a>, Prune Your Follows<\/em><\/a> can help us get back to what really matters by culling those accounts you don\u2019t use or appreciate. The web application was started by Norwegian developer, Benedicte \u201cQueen\u201d Raae of queen.raae.codes<\/a>. It links with your Twitter account and offers various ways of filtering through the people you follow.<\/p>\n We spoke to Queen Raae to find out more:<\/p>\n Q: Following too many accounts on Twitter or any social media can either be intense or just uninspiring if you find yourself yawning through your feed. Prune Your Follows<\/em> helps to solve this. Can you speak a bit about this <\/strong>social media overload<\/strong><\/a> we often experience? <\/strong><\/p>\n A: When we launched on Product Hunt our tagline was, \u2018Does your feed bring you joy?\u2019. [Before creating the app], I spoke to some people about the downsides of following vast numbers of people on Twitter. With the newer algorithm, your home feed is based not only on the people you follow but also people they <\/em>follow. It also prioritises people who are popular or who Tweet the most. [And this was irritating because] I was only following some of these accounts to keep an eye on them. I might not be super interested in their content. And my feed started becoming a place I didn\u2019t want to be.<\/p>\n Q: Do you think we need to regain control over our focus in this online \u2018attention economy\u2019 where everyone is trying to pique our interest all the time?<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m very much in favour of \u2018Marie Condo-ing\u2019 your feed. If a post or account doesn\u2019t give you anything positive, you are allowed<\/em> to unfollow that person. Even if that person [is harmless]. There are so many reasons why content might not make you feel great. And it might 100% be because of your own issues, [like maybe you\u2019re jealous, or you dislike certain content or something]. But that is still a valid reason to unfollow somebody<\/em>.<\/p>\n We should take this much more seriously and ask ourselves, \u201c[After seeing that post, I\u2019m feeling worse than before. Why is that? Maybe I need to be more mindful and unfollow people that don\u2019t bring joy into my life.\u201d Because with social media, you\u2019re trying to take a break. And a break should make you feel better, not worse.<\/p>\n Q: I read an article in <\/strong>The Atlantic<\/em><\/strong><\/a> about how social media has changed. It used to be quite personal, but now most content or posts are geared towards people you don\u2019t know. This can be useful for professional reasons like networking or connecting with communities across the globe, but there is the potential downside of it becoming far removed from its original purpose. <\/strong><\/p>\n A: I miss seeing my friends\u2019 photos on Facebook. [This was during a time] when we were following a manageable number of people and got to see more of their private lives and got to know them. It used to be like that on Twitter, too.<\/p>\n On the other hand, I still get that on Twitter [in a different way]. Like I have co-workers. They\u2019re not actual <\/em>co-workers, but as long as I keep the conversation with this online circle of people, I feel like I\u2019m part of a community. And it\u2019s a net positive in my life.<\/p>\n Some of the best networking I\u2019ve done has been on Twitter, where I get to know the individual more personally. I probably don\u2019t know everything about them because it\u2019s the internet, but I\u2019ve seen photos of their garden, or I\u2019ve talked to them about our summer plans. And then we\u2019ve met at conferences and made more of a personal connection there.<\/p>\n But, of course, social media can quickly become a negative experience if there\u2019s too much of what you don\u2019t want on your feed, and too little of what you actually want to see, [whatever that may be].<\/p>\n