The social media site once known as Twitter is a shell of its former self, overrun by explicit bigotry, fascist memes and scams. Yet a number of liberals, leftists and "normies" still regularly use Elon Musk's site, tacitly contributing to his larger far-right political project.

Are you a "Very Online" poster who feels like leaving X but can't break the habit? I'm here to help. Without intending to, I followed three steps in the first half of the 2020s that made it very easy to quit using the site. 

First, delete the app off your phone. Second, make your account private. Third, get on Bluesky.

I had known for years that I spent way too much time on Twitter, but it was only in late 2020 that I realized the depth of my addictive relationship with the site, when one of the thousands of dumb jokes I posted over the years went mega viral.

I was on a walk when the tweet – a mildly amusing joke about romcoms during the pandemic – took off. I remember looking at my phone every few minutes and running my thumb down the screen to reload my notifications, each time revealing dozens of new favs, retweets and unfunny replies from strangers making similar follow-up jokes.

After an hour or so of this, I noticed that I wasn't checking for the newest posts anymore – I was only reloading my notifications. Uh-oh.

Addicted to the notification nudge

For years, I had told myself that my Twitter habit was at least serving........

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