Twitter Is Changing Fast. Here’s What Could Happen Next

Michael Calore: Lauren, have you taken the step of setting up a wellness timer on your phone that limits the amount of time you’re allowed to spend in the app?

Lauren Goode: Oh, those are bullshit.

Michael Calore: No, they’re not. I use them all the time.

Lauren Goode: No, they’re totally bullshit. No, no. They’ve been around for years.

Vittoria Elliot: They’re just like alarms that you can just pause them and be like, “I’m going back in. See you.”

Lauren Goode: Yeah, they’re snooze buttons. They’re alarms, and then there’s a snooze button. And then you’re like, “Yep, that was nice. That was nice that you thought I was going to get up at 6:15. Nope.” I mean, that’s basically what it is. Yeah, no. And then every week you get the digest of how much time you’ve been spending on social media and you go, “Oh, wow, that’s a lot of time.” And then you open Instagram. I mean, the screen time thing was just like a smokescreen. The tech companies were starting to get a lot of heat for how addictive these apps and app platforms have been and how these products have been designed and all of the dark patterns that exist in them. And they were being scrutinized for this since they were like, “Here’s a solution, another app.” No, does not work. To break addiction takes something much stronger than that.

Michael Calore: I have had good success using the wellness timer around my Android phone. It just shuts off the app after I’ve spent more than 15 minutes looking at it and won’t open it up again until midnight, and I use it. I love it. It works for me.

Lauren Goode: I’m very happy for you.

Michael Calore: Thank you.

Lauren Goode: I mean that genuinely.

Vittoria Elliot: … part of the paid Twitter features they can, like, lock you out of your account for you?

Michael Calore: Now you’re talking.

Vittoria Elliot: Yeah, the Twitter Blue subscription. For now, I’m keeping it. I was just messaging with a friend. He said, “I just unsubscribed to Twitter Blue.” I’m like, “No. I actually think the Twitter Blue features are valuable enough for me still at this moment to do it.” Yeah, and everything is changing so fast right now with the way Elon Musk is running this company that I think the changes to it are going to become apparent sooner rather than later. Watch this space, folks. That’s my recommendation.

Michael Calore: Hopefully not too many changes happen between the time we’re recording this right now and the time that the podcast actually publishes to your feed.

Lauren Goode: It would be amazing if I got kicked off of Twitter in that time.

Michael Calore: In the next 48 hours.

Lauren Goode: Yeah. What can I do or tweet to get myself kicked off of Twitter?

Michael Calore: I have some ideas.

Lauren Goode: Vittoria, thank you so much for joining us on Gadget Lab. This was your Gadget Lab debut, and I really hope you join us more in the future.

Vittoria Elliot: Yeah, thank you guys so much for having me.

Lauren Goode: And Mike, thanks as always for being a great cohost.

Michael Calore: Of course. Thank you.

Lauren Goode: And thanks to all of you for listening. If you have feedback, you can find all of us on Twitter. Just check the show notes. We’re still there for now. Our producer is the excellent Boone Ashworth. Goodbye for now. We’ll be back next week.

[Gadget Lab outro theme music plays]

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