Brexit has made the UK miserable enough – there’s no use in bringing that divisiveness to Twitter too

The social media platform has turned into the digital equivalent of a toxic family on Boxing Day – and it doesn’t take much for the whole thing to blow

Last Friday was apparently “Positive Twitter Day” with even the likes of Julia Hartley-Brewer, aka one of Greta Thunberg’s many adult antagonists, tweeting a picture of a sunrise before she cracked under the strain and resumed normal slagging-everyone-off service. Typically, I missed this 24-hour window of sweetness and light. I was off Twitter at the time, possibly because so much scorn has been poured on my head for tweeting “I’m really disappointed in the Queen” in a sort of tongue-in-cheek reaction to her granting Boris Johnson permission to prorogue parliament a couple of days before.

Yes, I know NOW she didn’t have a choice, but up until what shall now be known as the official Twitter “prorogue day”, I didn’t really know what it meant. But as soon as I tweeted my naive reaction to Her Majesty giving the go ahead, the Twitter floodgates opened and suddenly many, many people on my Twitter timeline were instant experts in the fine art of proroguing, a word which to me still sounds like something unseemly one might do to a pig.

Listen, I don’t blame these instant experts, I do it myself. Every time there’s a World Cup, I’m suddenly more knowledgeable about football than –”insert name of someone who knows a lot about football”. But I refuse to feel foolish about being in the political dark re: proroguing. No, I wasn’t taught about it at school (I wouldn’t have listened anyway) and no, I hadn’t really picked up on the finer details of the process over the summer when the possibility of it happening started being bandied about, because it wasn’t going to happen, was it? Until last Tuesday, even Johnson’s uber-Brexit mates had pooh-poohed the idea and mentally, I’d dismissed it. After all, Amber Rudd, Michael Gove et al said it was a daft idea. So I might be gullible, but I refuse to be labelled stupid and people who immediately leap down the throats of those of us who cheerfully expose our patchy political education need to check how patronising they’re being, because sneering isn’t ever helpful.

That said, at least thanks to Twitter I think I’ve now grasped the proroguing basics, though I still maintain my right to imagine a The Crown-esque version of recent events in which Olivia Colman, she of the left-wing face (according to a journalist in The Telegraph) boots Johnson up the backside and thwacks him around the head with her handbag, whilst screeching “prorogue my arse”.

Ahem – this is possibly why I am a writer of fiction and have mercifully had the good sense to turn down Question Time on numerous occasions. I know my limits. And when I forget them, Twitter is always there to remind me. Phew, and yet, despite having had a week of being told on Twitter how thick I am, I’m still on it, scrolling and commenting, “liking” and occasionally muting.

Twitter has opened my eyes to a great many things over the decade or so since I first signed up, and I mostly find it an informative and friendly platform. But that’s possibly because I follow nice people who are pretty like-minded, the arty, novel-reading Remainers, happy to swap HRT experiences and top coleslaw tips, tweeting pictures of butterflies and dahlias.

So while Twitter has taught me a great deal, it has also lulled me into a false sense of security. It’s cocooned me among my own kind, because on the whole, like finds like and “likes” it. My Twitter is slap bang middle of the road, it’s indie easy listening, it’s this summer’s non-Booker “must-read” and what do you think of the new Bake Off contestants?

What I enjoy most about Twitter is the massive, shared-over-the-garden-fence chat that everyone is welcome to join. What I don’t like is when that chat goes sour and the experience turns into something dark and furious and I have a horrible feeling this is happening more frequently. Twitter has turned into a toxic family on Boxing Day and it doesn’t take much for the whole thing to blow.

Of course, there are still corners of social media where it’s possible to believe that all really is well and where the dreaded “B-word” never gets a mention, if I want to feel really safe, I trawl through horticultural accounts of famous gardens, plant emporiums and flower specialists, these are the Twitter accounts for whom every day is positive and they are a balm to the soul.

The internet can both inform and protect you against political unrest, no wonder so many young people are glued to YouTube clips of shopping and eyebrow shaping, the real world at the moment is so very difficult and it’s likely to get even trickier over the next few months. So for those of us who muck about on social media, I know not every day can be a “Positive Twitter Day”, but let’s all make a concerted effort not to make things worse; let’s promise to play as nicely as we possibly can and walk away when we can’t.