Twitter is great, but don’t forget the most important rule – never confuse your Twitter feed for the country. Three decades of journalism have taught me that the real world looks nothing like my address book. It’s a good resource, but if I’m to have any opinions worth publishing, nothing beats talking to people IRL (in real life).

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If you are currently upset with Elon and engaging in public arguments with him, remember this: it’s like wrestling with a pig; you both get dirty but the pig enjoys it. In Twitter’s world, the most important metric is the engagement rate – the number of likes, replies, clicks, follows, retweets, etc – divided by the number of impressions (which is the number of times your tweet turns up in someone’s Twitter feed).

So, when you go onto Twitter and “call out” Elon over an objectionable opinion, you are in fact slipping money into his pocket. Much better, if you want to lower your cortisol levels, to either block or mute people you disagree with, or just ignore them – it’s that simple.

Or, like me, you could stay on Twitter just to find people who drive you a bit crazy. It’s good practice for spending Christmas Day with your nearest and dearest. If only there was a mute button in real life.

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