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#IMHO140 – Think before you Tweet. Pause before you Wave

Media140 likes to give our blog readers something a little different for the weekend, in the congenial #TGIF spirit that marks the end of the working week. Here, Tom Griffiths gives us his very personal perspective on Twitter and the office chair revolution and how we seem to have gone from apathy to energy in 140 characters. Unsurprisingly, he wonders whether we might now have gone just one comment too far?

Twitter is giving us a voice, and everyone’s starting to realise it…but do we give enough consideration before re-tweeting and jumping onboard the hashtagged bandwagon? And, more pertinently, who is ‘us’?

It’s affecting global politics, out-muscling oil companies & solicitors, freeing newspapers and castigating others (no surprise that the media-loving Guardian has benefitted and The Daily Mail has taken a text-based beating). And amidst all of this, like the cheeky child who has gone one comment too far, we don’t seem to have had the chance to sit on the stairs and think about what we’ve done.

‘What is this life if full of care. We have plenty of time to stand and tweet.’

The thought-police are dropping back down the highway in our digital rear view mirror. We’re pulling away by typing our thoughts and hitting ‘enter’ before we’ve even had chance to form them properly. So keen are we to share and ‘be part of it’ (whatever ‘it’ is), that our knee-jerk opinion has thrown considered thought out of the window. But is that really such a bad thing? It’s getting things done, right? It’s getting media attention and giving ‘power to the people’!!

But with great power, comes great responsibility. And with slightly crazed power, comes slightly crazed reality.

This pop-power has several implications. Twitter allows us to react in ‘real-time’ (that’s 10 points in buzzword bingo, thankyouverymuch!). But at least we can type a tweet, re-read it, discard it, or save it for later. Now we have Google Wave, where I’ve been nobbing around for the last couple of weeks, and the thought process truly is real-time as we don’t get to read our thoughts before they’re ‘out there’.

I watch people type live, make typos, correct typos, and then panic and delete a post…that I’ve already read! The damage is done in our eagerness to ‘be involved’. There simply is nowhere to hide. What happens when they realise that the typos weren’t the only mistakes they made? What happens if the thought ‘sounded better in their head’ as it so often does? No longer foot-in-mouth disease, but foot-on-keyboard?

So our foot is on the keyboard, our knee is jerking, and we’re tweeting as fast as possible so that we’re involved. One thing that is happening is I’m thinking (and typing) a lot faster than I’m used to. Are my thoughts less considered? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Maybe, but it makes for more discussions and leads to more thought. Is Quantity vs. Quality of thought as obvious a choice as we might think? Do more thoughts – shared – form more rounded opinions in the long run? Are we not simply involving others in a thought process that would have happened anyway?

I’m thinking of going on a thought safari, I’ll spot some ideas, you be the verbal sniper, and we’ll grill it only after we’ve made lots of noise.

So, collective thought. Collaboration. Is Twitter one massive brain-storm? If so, who’s gonna write up the notes? And do trending topics decide if it was valid? Or that it simply appealed to the masses? We know the adage ‘a person is clever, people are stupid’, but do we not need to specify how many people?

Collaborative thought can lead to great ideas. Who is to say that conversation cannot produce a clear idea that is better informed than if just one person had mooted it? An idea can polarise thought, but surely thought can polarise an idea? The question is, which medium is best to encourage true, collaborative thought? Google Wave for discussion, Twitter for revolution?

Either way, ‘people’, however stupid or assumptive they might be, are engaging and discussing and furthering opinion. Thoughts are being put under the microscope. Twitter might prove a medium for unconsidered thought (or inconsiderate thought), but surely there is value in the debate? Every process needs to start with a single thought. It is whether we choose to share this thought in its raw, unsullied form, or afford it the time it might deserve.

Twitter gives us the power to make a lot of noise. Wave won’t have such an impact publicly, but it does ensure that the fastest typer, not necessarily the person with the wittiest or most pertinent comment, will get seen or heard. The loudest person in the room is now the fastest typer in the Wave. And I’d bet my buzzword bingo prize money that the quietest person in a ‘real’ discussion will be the faster typer…but are they confident enough to type ‘live’? Would any of us risk having our, potentially, ill-thought opinion out in the open before we’ve had the chance to not ill-think it?

So Twitter is reducing our thinking time, or rather increasing our reaction time, and it’s encouraging us to join the debate, but then the point we’re making is more gut instinct than considered thought… And Wave is exposing the risks of ‘real-time’ more than ever. And we’ve not even touched on the fact that these text-based environments remove intonation, inflection and so the nuances of meaning. I’m thinking of starting a real-time, thought-cloud called Blurt. But I’ve not given it much consideration…