I MUST admit that I do consider myself to be somewhat of a social media aficionado, so I was intrigued to see if Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads app would function properly as a replacement for the now frequently glitchy Twitter.
I’ve had Myspace, Bebo, Blogger, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, the lot - so what’s one more site asking for a dubious amount of data to add to my already sprawling digital footprint?
Well, I did slightly reconsider that after the notice from Meta that signing up to Threads would allow the company access to my health and sensitive information, but journalistic curiosity got the better of me.
READ MORE: Battle of the apps: Threads has potential but Twitter shouldn't be 'written off yet'
And I’m stuck with it now because if I want to delete my profile, I need to delete my Instagram account too. There are too many cat pictures on there for that.
Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter there have been a myriad of issues and an influx of previously banned users. The rate limit imposed last week, which allowed unverified users to only see 600 tweets a day, was the last straw. I found myself limiting my time on the app, and looking for dopamine hits elsewhere.
Queue Threads arrival in the days that followed, and in the first few hours it did feel somewhat like a revelation. It was simple to use - a stripped-back version of Twitter that took out all of the noise and abuse. Everyone was delighted to be there, wondering what the app would offer.
Yet the lack of hashtags, a search function, and inability to weaponise gifs to comedic effect however, did somewhat detract from its glean.
And, within a few hours as more people signed up through Instagram, there was a definite presence of blue ticked accounts dominating the timeline.
At dinner time, my husband remarked that he was being force fed posts by Paris Hilton, and couldn’t work out how to filter her out. My timeline was also chock full of celebrities, brands and media outlets that I did not follow.
But the real test for Threads came on Friday morning. As a journalist, my prerogative is to spend my time on sites where I can have access to information, see breaking news as it happens, and keep up to date on what politicians are saying.
When it emerged that there was a scurrilous email relating to former Tory chancellor George Osborne’s impending nuptials that had been leaked, it took me less than a few minutes to find the link to it on Twitter.
READ MORE: Firm who donated to Tories are now Scottish Labour's biggest backer
There was no sign of The Email, or any chatter or jokes about it, on Threads. You couldn’t search for them even if you wanted to.
While Zuckerberg is framing his latest offering as a friendlier place than Twitter, if it's so sanitised that users can’t even see trending topics and are being force-fed brand engagement, I, and others, will bore quickly.
I’m not writing Threads off, the developers will likely make many tweaks and improvements in the months to come, but I don’t think we’ll see a mass exodus from Twitter just yet, no matter how bad it gets.
It just means I have two micro-blogging sites to keep up with now rather than one.
Whether that's a good thing - I'm still not sure.
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