I Was on Threads for 36 Hours Before I Deactivated My Account

Here's why...

I only heard about Threads a few days ago. I was intrigued, as I always am when something new comes onto the online scene, so I thought I’d give it a go. Trying new things is something I like to do. Experimenting is my thing. I know I’ve written recently about Instagram no longer being the place for me but I was hopeful that this could be where I reconnect with my Instagram audience. An audience I’d built up in just short of a decade and was reluctant to ignore.

For those who aren’t aware, Threads is a new platform, not dissimilar to Twitter run by Meta (Facebook/Instagram). It’s connected to your Instagram account so, if you already have one (and I believe you need one to start on Threads) your audience doesn’t start from zero.

On Thursday I woke up to find Threads was already active after having its launch time brought forward - so I opened my account and created my first thread.

At first, it was lovely. I had a number of people who had missed seeing me on Instagram; whether that was because I wasn’t posting there or the algorithm had hidden me from them.

But my home feed was a mess. Like everyone else, I was being shown loads of random accounts. Including many English football clubs. Maybe Meta thinks everyone who is British enjoys football? Who knows, but I was doing a lot of muting.

I found myself checking in consistently throughout the day. To see who had joined, and who had replied to my posts. My focus for Thursday was completely lost.

Fast forward thirty-six hours and I opened the app one last time before I went to bed (I know, a bad habit) and thought ‘no’. I found the deactivate button and clicked (you cannot delete your account as this will also delete your Instagram account!) I didn’t know I was going to do this when I opened the app, but I did it and felt so much better.

I made some notes on my phone about all the issues I had with Threads. Each time I settled down to go to sleep I’d think of another point and have to sit up again. But before I say what they are this is no way me disrespecting you if you enjoy Threads. We’re all different, we all enjoy different things. I may even give it another try later down the line when things are more settled. But for the moment, it’s not for me. This is why:

1. On your feed, you are currently shown loads of random people that you don’t follow. Some are football clubs (as mentioned above) some are brands, some are influencers with hundreds of likes on their threads; most I’ve never heard of. And a few are people I know and/or follow. Some sound super confident. Some sound aggressive, some are asking questions for the purposes of engagement, and some are coming across as not particularly likeable. Some of the replies to their Threads (because, yes, I had to go there) come across as bullying or deeply unpleasant. Amidst all of this, I find the occasional thread I’d like to respond to. But as I scroll my head feels like it’s being plugged into an electric socket with my hair, cartoon style, sticking up in all directions. It’s just too fecking loud.

2. You know how they tell you to not meet your heroes in case you’re disappointed? Well, this works for some of your favourite Instagrammers on Threads too. I remember having the same feeling when I read some of my favourite author’s tweets many years ago. For me, there’s a limit to how much random bollocks I need to know and see from inside their heads.

3. I had intended to use this as a way of documenting my work and to encourage readers over to my Substack. This actually worked when I shared one of my recent essays - I think I gained five or so free subscribers. But at what cost to my mental health?

4. Speaking of mental health, I could feel myself becoming more and more agitated by trivial things from real life. All because, to coin a modern word, Threads was ‘triggering’ me.

5. If it’s too over-stimulating for me it’s probably going to be too overstimulating for my core audience.

6. I don’t want to talk about Taylor Swift online. I have real-life conversations with my daughter about that. No disrespect to Swifties or Ms Swift. I just have no interest in spending my online time talking about her, or whether Harry Styles has joined Threads yet.

7. It was depleting my creativity. I have a book to write and a Substack to run on limited creative energy as it is.

8. I was doing it because I thought I should. It was a ready-made audience. Meta was deliberately creating FOMO (fear of missing out) as part of their launch strategy. And people were telling me that I should be on there. Er, no.

9. Users of Threads were already creating rules on what ‘should’ be shared on there. Some were dead-set against videos being shared. So when I decided to share my Substack essay I was petrified in case someone told me this wasn’t the right place to promote my long-form writing. (This is a hangover from my Twitter days when I was told it wasn’t the app to share photos.)

10. I’m not interested in people crowing about Zuck getting one over on Musk. I really couldn't care less and I’d rather not have my head filled with the ‘drama’.

11. After some digging, I realised that I thought Threads was a place I could get ‘spotted’. A dangerously unproductive thought for me to have because it stops me from doing the work and pushing myself forward and putting myself out there (for example, by submitting to agents).

12. If I was looking for a place to drive readers to my Substack then YouTube would probably be a better bet. It might take slightly more time (though, importantly, there’s no addictive scrolling danger for me on YouTube - that saves me a LOT of time) but at least my videos are evergreen and I can make a few pence out of them.

So, DEACTIVATE.

I then opened the Substack app to check in on Notes and in contrast, the space was just so soothing. Seriously, I have never seen a contrast quite like that online before.

When I decided on my goals this year, growing a good quality Substack and writing my book were my priorities. Yes, it’s always nice to get more subscribers and lure people over from Instagram to my email list. But I don’t feel comfortable doing that in such a frenzied arena.

I’m glad I tried it, otherwise I’d have been left wondering. But I’m also very pleased that it only took me 36 hours to realise it just wasn’t for me.

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I really enjoyed the following on the subject of Threads:

From

S.E. Reid

:

From

Sophie Ingleby

:

From

Emma Gannon

:

I love this paragraph from Emma’s thread:

I could have stayed, watched the numbers clock up. It was tempting, the chimp brain goes oooooh. The feed was like a slot machine, pull down, more content. Memes, gifs, silly jokes, like everyone was on Speed. The Guardian has described it as “a fever dream in which Twitter and Instagram had a more usable brain child". Shudder?

A thread on Threads

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So, have you tried it? What do you think?