Alternate Timeline

I’m obsessed with how we get our information, how we learn about new technology and new ideas. For a lot of us, that means X. And for a lot of us, that means too much time on X. When I asked the room who spends too much time there, everyone did.

So what if the timeline helped you scroll better? I tried it in an iPhone app called Alternate Timeline, and recorded this episode live, in front of an audience. The app wraps the X website, so it feels just like the X app, with a few things added on top.

It starts with time. Before each session, you choose how much time to give it: 30 seconds, 5 minutes, or 15 minutes. When the time runs out, X is covered until you take a walk. It’s only 30 steps, enough to go get a glass of water, and then you choose again.

The rest live in the Reality distortion menu. Each one is for a problem I have with X.

  • Positivity. For doomscrolling. Uplifting posts slip into your timeline, in the categories you choose, like science, nature, history, and kindness. A model writes new ones as you scroll.
  • Book inject. For the books I feel guilty about not reading. Import a book, and its passages show up as posts, in order. I tried it with Indi Young’s Mental Models. Tap a passage to keep reading from there, and the next one picks up where you stopped.
  • 2 Truths and a Lie. For critical thinking. We read a lot of posts and assume they’re true. Every few posts, a fake slips in: a made-up fact, invented company news, a quote Steve Jobs never said, or an animal that doesn’t exist, with a generated photo. Tap the cap button to call it out. Miss three in a session, and you’re sent on a walk.
  • Jump scare. For the sessions that keep going. The home screen counts your sessions in a row. Start one more after three, and Scare mode turns on: you can keep scrolling as long as you’re willing to be scared at random moments.

Do any of these work? I don’t know, I’m having fun with a bunch of them. DM me for the TestFlight to try it yourself.

We think about the air we breathe and the food we eat. Maybe we can be just as intentional about what we scroll.