Ev BogueWhen I untethered from Twitter, I had to delete my account. I couldn't just leave it open. I would have wondered: did anyone tweet me? Then I would have worried: but what if they tweeted me, and then got mad at me for not replying?
Removing the possibility of being tweeted, my mind was left no space to worry or wonder.
Instead, I started to look for new ways to reach out to new people.
Yes, leaving in this way is absolute. All of my tweets are gone. The 6,000 people who supposedly were following me? Still out there, but the link between us: broken.
In this untethering, I made way for new possibilities. I didn't starve to death. A sabertooth tiger didn't eat me.
I just didn't have the option of being tweeted anymore.
As technology advances, the systems that I use to explore my digital world will change. Over the last decade, I've watched dozens of key systems come and go. Livejournal, Myspace, Geocities, Facebook -- to name a few that I was an active member, but quit when they stopped being useful for me.
I choose to care my digital self in this way: I clean up when I leave. This isn't for the Internet, it isn't for my readers. It's for me: so I don't have to worry that someone is desperately trying to get ahold of me on a system I no longer use.