Alex Stone

I’ve been on an unfollow spree on Twitter and Tumblr and I encourage you to do the same (even if it means unfollowing me. I won’t take it personal, I promise).

The reasoning is that Twitter and Tumblr can be very valuable and rich sources of all kinds of information, but only after you’ve cut out the noise.

Here’s How: One night when you’re bored or can’t sleep, just go through your follow list and cut out people you know have nothing to say. I cut out a LOT of celebs because they often have nothing interesting to talk about except sports… and I don’t like sports. Comedians will sometimes have some gems, but I now trust the power of RT to bring those gems to me.

Next, basically, as you check your twitter/tumblr feed, just start hacking out people who routinely talk about things that don’t interest you. If you’re skipping over it, anyway, just get rid of it.

Finally, and this is a toughie, cut out people that inadvertently trigger your buttons. Got a friend that does nothing but post opposing political views that upset you? Unfollow. Got a friend that uses twitter as their personal whining board? Unfollow. Too much swearing? Constant negativity? Subtle racism and bigotries? Unfollow.

If you’re like me, you get a lot of information from Twitter and have a lot of friends that use twitter to announce news to everyone (ex. “It’s a boy!”). Having this kind of poison in your day to day is never good.

And if you’re on the receiving end of the Unfollow, I urge you not to take it personally. It’s not. It’s just that what you are tweeting/blogging is essentially static to some people. You’ll live.

If you follow me, I keep it pretty mixed up, but try to stick to my interests (phones, tech, web stuff, TV, music, etc.). If that’s not your thing, I encourage you to Unfollow me and cut out the static I’m emitting.

I have several twitter accounts (for each of my projects) so I can keep things separated, but things spill over.

One more thing:

I also unfollowed people that don’t use the retweet button and don’t know how to @reply people correctly. These people are essentially spam to me and I won’t tolerate it (within reason). That’s just me, though.