Be informed

I was on the train heading to work reading a book; namely, Rob Hopkins’ What if: Unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want. A hardback book purchased from my local independent bookshop, Printed Matter, in Hastings. It is a time-consuming business, reading books. I’d devoted a few hours to this book on Saturday, albeit in a lovely cafe with coffee and lunch. I carried on through my commute because it was reasonably easy to manipulate on a full train.

Hopkins discusses the issue of lost time…something that I have discussed in this blog previously (written at a time when there were fewer mobile phones and no Brexit). Hopkins reveals that a major contributor to lost time is social media. Twitter in particular. It is true, I have spent a lot of time there reading the opinions of those I trust, appreciate and genuinely learn from. I also spent a lot of time reading the opinions of those I profoundly disagree with – fascists mostly. Or fascist sympathisers. I followed these ugly people in order to avoid being in a bubble of self-flattery, which is the danger with social media. I took that from a book as well.

On Monday I deactivated my Twitter account. On Tuesday I took the Twitter icons off my mobile and tablet. I unpinned twitter from my computer desktop. How am I coping? Fine. The irony is, though, the book that finally pushed me to deactivate was endorsed on Twitter.