Research on Twitter abuse by Amnesty International USA found that “40 percent of women who use the platform more than once a day report experiencing abuse.”

Michael Kleinman, the group’s director of technology and human rights, said in a December statement: “Despite our repeated calls to improve their platform, Twitter is still falling short on its promises to protect users at heightened risk of online abuse. For a company whose mission is to ‘give everyone the power to create and share ideas instantly without barriers,’ it’s become abundantly clear that women and/or marginalized groups disproportionately face threats to their online safety.”

This begs the question: Why are those of us who use Twitter doing this to ourselves?

My answer, sadly, is: I don’t know! I keep going back, and I think I might have a problem!

While Twitter does help me stay informed on up-to-the-second breaking news and has given me a platform to share jokes and other assorted nonsense, I’d guess the time devoted to tweeting would’ve been enough to write a couple books, learn how to mediate and possibly spend a few quiet moments each day not being told I’m “a radical leftist (expletive) who should be (expletive) in the (expletive) for my evil (expletive) (expletive) (expletive).”