Why we should all raise a glass to the hero who’s called time on Twitter!

As the boss of Wetherspoon stops his pubs using social media, a grateful QUENTIN LETTS says ...

BUY that man Tim Martin a congratulatory pint of his foamiest bitter. He has just saved himself — and the rest of us — some time and money. Mr Martin, boss of pub chain JD Wetherspoon, has decided to close his company’s social media accounts.

‘ You can’t do that!’ gasped Received Wisdom. ‘Yes I can,’ grunted Mr Martin.

No longer will Wetherspoon pubs or its head office bother to post messages on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram (whatever that might be). Mr Martin said he and his colleagues could not be fagged with social media and the hassle it generates. There was more to life and business than a Twitter feed.

The internet reacted yesterday with bafflement and even crossness. True to form, Mr Martin was subjected to abuse, Tweeters attacking his long hairdo and his politics (pro-Brexit) and the quality of his pubs.

This rather proved a point Mr Martin made when he explained his decision. Too often, he said, the internet was a source of aggression by ‘trolls’. He’s got a point, hasn’t he? Social media is a place of bizarre anger and nastiness. It boils with anonymous bile. Why do we indulge it so much?

He was also worried about data security and the compulsive habits social media may cause. So Wetherspoon was logging off for good. Hashtag #omigodtheemperorhasnoclothes, as a millennial social-media addict might say.

The move called to mind the ancient story of the Gordian Knot. Classicists will recall that some time in the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great arrived at Gordium, capital of Phrygia, and was confronted with a vast knot which for many years had secured a cart to a post. Legend stated that the person who untied this knot would go on to conquer Asia.

At first, Alexander did as many others had done before him: he tried to untie the knot with his fingers. No joy. Then he had a brainwave. He whipped out his sword and sliced through the knot in one. Problem solved!

The world over, companies are at present grappling with the problem of how to control their reputations on social media.

How much time and money should they spend on their social media accounts? How many geeks should they employ to make themselves look groovy on the internet? What tone should they adopt when talking to their ‘followers’ (a word we once reserved for prophets)?

SOME business executives obsess about this every working day. The bigger corporations have entire divisions to deal with social media. Tim Martin, in the manner of Alexander the Great, just whipped out his blade and chopped through the whole nightmarish tangle.

I suspect his move will be met by a tremendous blast of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus in various parts of the country, not least from small business owners and their staff.

At last! Someone has said the obvious: social media sites are not an unalloyed good or necessity. In fact, they can be a demoralising blight, as well as a waste of commercial time.

You would probably do much better just to have a basic website which lays out your wares and contact details — and then crack on with real life and real trade with real customers.

Social media pitches us into a distracting vortex of instantaneous comment, is quite often poisonous and under-informed, and its economic value to many companies is far from certain.

Yet until now there was a presumption, never really questioned, that any company that hoped to get ahead had to ‘get’ social media. Any firm that did not have its own array of Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and endless other links would be regarded as a dinosaur. Corporate death would ensue.

Maybe. But maybe not. Maybe the whole thing is just a ludicrous Tower of Babel which simply creates jobs for the very people who tell us it is essential.

Wetherspoon makes its money by selling drink and food. It has gained a name not so much for metropolitan coolness as for low prices in central locations. I have only been to Wetherspoon pubs about four times, but so far as I could gather, they seemed efficient and popular with families.

When was the last time someone read a Wetherspoon Tweet and thought ‘that’s what I need, a gin- and- tonic at my local Wetherspoon outlet’?

Possibly never. I bet you could enter a Wetherspoon pub and find not a single drinker who was interested in the company’s socialmedia profile.

Why, therefore, should such a business bother with all that ethereal effort? Why not save a few quid by stopping it — and pass the savings on to the customers?

For Mr Martin and the managers of his 900 pubs, life will immediately improve. They will no longer have to think up some fresh witticism on the day’s controversies.

And they will no longer have to worry about keeping in with the notoriously touchy Twittersphere, a territory of daft vehemence and asserted self- virtue. over the years, Tim Martin has suffered more than his share of socialmedia trolling.

As a proud supporter of Leave in the eU referendum campaign, he took plenty of gyp from the proRemain zealots who seem to populate so much of Facebook and Twitterdom.

Yet, his decision to quit the e- sphere does not seem to be linked to that personal abuse (he probably has a pretty thick skin by now). ever the businessman, he simply could not see a case for continuing with his company’s social-media activity.

‘ We are going against conventional wisdom that these platforms are a vital component of a successful business,’ he said. ‘We were also concerned that pub managers were being sidetracked from the real job of serving customers.’ He is surely right that pub and restaurant managers are more likely to increase takings by working behind the bar, keeping an eye on trade and talking to customers, rather than staring at a screen in an office, desperately devising a drollery du jour for the wretched Facebook page.

Spending too much time on social media may be bad for the catering trade in another way: it prevents us doing that old human thing of getting out and interacting with fellow human beings at the local boozer.

Twitter and Facebook may be called ‘social media’ but they are better described as antisocial because they can become an allconsuming, introspective, indoors obsession. Fact: someone chained to their social-media feed is less likely to have a good old chinwag at the bar and buy another pint.

In my youth I often worked in pubs and learned that the best publicans were those who put in the hours at the pumps, listening to customers (sometimes ejecting them from the premises when they became a bit too lively).

THE least busy pubs tended to be those whose bosses hid upstairs, entrusting front- of- house work to junior members of staff.

At this point I should admit that I use Twitter. I took it up a couple of years ago for two reasons. My publisher said Tweeting would promote interest in my books (and thus increase sales — huh!).

I also discovered someone had started a spoof Twitter account in my name and was posting objectionable messages on it. I took the view that if rude Tweets were to go out under my name, I might as well write them myself.

That is the extent of my habit. I post perhaps two messages a day, partly as vanity, partly as freelance brand maintenance and book promotion, and I almost never read the messages other people leave on my feed. I certainly wouldn’t bother to Tweet if I did not earn my living as a writer.

Apart from acquaintances in journalism, I can think of only one friend in Herefordshire, where we live, who Tweets.

Facebook seems a slightly more congenial affair — more for family and chums and our village church, telling everyone service times for next Sunday. Instagram and other social media are beyond me. Tim Martin’s move is liberating. He is saying ‘you don’t HAVe to do it’. one of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs is, in short, saying the whole socialmedia fandango has been inflated and over-hyped. He is giving us permission to opt out.

I bet a lot of relieved people will follow suit.