Twitter users are being forced to confront their doomscrolling habits thanks to Elon Musk's introduction of temporary "rate limits," which have capped the number of tweets that users can view per day.
Musk announced the restrictions in a tweet on Saturday, blaming "extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation" from AI companies on the platform. Verified accounts for paid users were initially limited to reading 6,000 posts per day. Existing unverified accounts were limited to reading 600 posts per day and new unverified accounts only 300 per day. Those numbers were later increased to 10,000, 1,000, and 500, respectively, according to Musk's tweets.
—ian (@ianisuglyyy) July 3, 2023
Over the weekend, Twitter users reported that once they had reached their viewing limits, no new content would be displayed, and a notification would appear informing them that they had exceeded their "rate limit" for the day. The term "Rate Limit Exceeded" was trending on Twitter on Saturday, Insider previously reported.
Collective panic has continued to ensue, and people have been complaining en masse about having their Twitter usage limited. A number of users have said that scrolling and waiting for the dreaded rate limit notification to come up on their phones has caused them to feel fear and anxiety.
Some people have said they've been trying to find loopholes so they can bypass the restrictions, such as experimenting with only looking at quote tweets or an account's "liked" tweets to see if they would still count towards their allotted limit, but it is unclear how successful these methods have been.
Initially, viewing tweets through the social media dashboard application Tweetdeck, which helps users to look up tweets about a variety of topics at the same time, was allowing people to bypass the restrictions, according to The Guardian. But by Sunday, users were reporting considerable issues with using Tweetdeck too, per TechCrunch.
Many users have now pivoted to humor. The Twitter rate limit has become a source of memes on the platform, as hundreds of users have posted gifs and images that express hyperbolic shock and sadness at not being able to read as many tweets as they want throughout the day.
Some users said that reaching their viewing limits over the past few days has caused them to realize they are probably spending too much time on the app and that it's helped them to combat habits of doomscrolling.
A handful of people have even said it's the "best thing" to have happened to them as not being on Twitter has meant they've been more able to manage their time and be productive.
—Brooklyn (@bklynb4by) July 2, 2023
Doomscrolling — the compulsive urge to scroll through negative news – can affect your mental health by reinforcing negative thoughts or causing a sense of helplessness, Insider previously reported.
Restricting social media usage by blocking out an allotted time for scrolling in your day can help break doomscrolling habits, Bethany Teachman, PhD, a professor of psychology and director of clinical training at the University of Virginia, told Insider.
It seems Musk agrees. In one of his tweets about the online discourse, he responded in the style of a poem, writing:
you awake from a deep trance,
step away from the phone
to see your friends & family
In just over 24 hours since sharing this advice, Musk has tweeted at least 14 times.
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