John Mayer Reveals Why He Quit Twitter

John Mayer revealed why he’s gone cold turkey on social media while advising students at a recent clinic at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. “I realized about a year ago that I couldn’t have a complete thought anymore, and I was a tweetaholic,” Mayer said. “I had four million Twitter followers, and I was always writing on it. And I stopped using Twitter as an outlet and I started using Twitter as the instrument to riff on, and it started to make my mind smaller and smaller and smaller. And I couldn’t write a song.”

Since quitting Twitter, Mayer has endeavored to become more disciplined and focused on his music. “Here are the rules for recording this record: No drum machines, no loops, no keyboards to start out with, no excuses, no breaks, no laptops, no nothing,” he said. “If you take a break, it’s to eat. If you’re done, you go home.”

Photos: John Mayer’s Rolling Stone Cover Shoot

Mayer told the music students to focus their time on practicing and finishing songs rather than promoting their projects on social media sites. “This time is a really important time for you guys because nobody knows who you are, and nobody should,” he said. “This is not a time to promote yourself. It doesn’t matter. This is the time to get your stuff together. Promotion can be like that. You can have promotion in 30 seconds if your stuff is good. Good music is its own promotion.”