In the spirit of experimentation and to offset the irony of having this conversation on twitter I thought I'd try branch.

I've been thinking a lot about this. Some thoughts here:
beyondclicktivism.com

Although I returned to twitter after posting the following, I did not reinstall a twitter client on my phone and felt a lot happier as a result:
beyondclicktivism.com

Without a phone client, twitter feels less intrusive. But I still find it compulsive and worry that it reinforces a system I want to alter. beyondclicktivism.com

Yet on Saturday's demo, I really noticed the lack of a phone client as a mobilising tool.

Thoughts?

My motivation is more driven by the risk of getting sarcastic or argumentative, and making an impression I'd rather not.

This has happened twice in the last week - one weird reaction on Instagram, and one stupid Twitter argument when I was a bit tipsy. For each, I don't think I did/said anything particularly heinous - but nonetheless, it's an interaction worth avoiding - not least because this is my professional profile too. (What a can of worms *that* angle raises!)

So I was wondering whether I needed to add in a layer of think-before-I-tweet, or no-Twitter-pingpong-at-2am, or basically other barriers to daft behavour...

I blogged about this too: "On Flippancy", and the risks of pissing people off unintentionally:
hautepop.tumblr.com

(I am now getting distracted reading way too much of your very good blog, which makes its own point about my predilection to be diverted from tasks my superego would say were more important.)

For me, considering dialling down Twitter a bit is also definitely about that. I find it the most dangerous around 5-7pm when I should be finishing up things at work, but it's the end of the day, I'm tired, and I'd rather do something more engaging. Far too many times has this left me stuck in the office until 8 or later for no real reason. Clearly, this isn't psychologically healthy.

Question: is the problem in checking Twitter, or is it in not being able to get ourselves out again fast enough? Is it the click in, or the click onwards?

Yes, I read your flippancy post the other day - lots of interesting things there. Tone is very hard to gauge especially from a brief utterance. (Of course this has always been true of the written word.)

Gender and age are often invisible online and that's beautiful. Even the most progressive person has prejudices - being freed to engage with another on the level of their statements rather than preconceptions about what women/men/old/young people think is liberating.

From the standpoint of tackling addiction/compulsive behaviour, it's the click in that must be avoided but a tool that automatically logged you out after a fixed time would be great. Combine with lastpass and it could change your password too denying you the chance to cheat.

The other issue you raise about professional profile / personal profiles is another good one. The google+ idea of circles is a great idea if potentially cumbersome in practice. Sometimes I want to check in with just a small set of people perhaps to discuss something specific - being visible and open to the demands and questions and issues of the wider set of people I follow can be very distracting (not least because I still try to engage with everyone who @s me although this becomes extremely difficult once you're followed by more than 100 odd people)