I have been thinking a lot this week about communication in this day an age. The resources that are available to so many of us, to make comments and statements and express opinions and points of view. Thanks to the web and technology, the platforms are endless. Yet my mind has spent a lot of time remembering my days of being on the school debate team and of the competition speeches I used to partake in, in high school. I love a good argument but that’s just it - an argument. Not some slanging match fuelled by ignorance or hatred or just because you have a keyboard that is linked to the outside world so you just can. And the thing that gets me the most is that it seems to be, in this day and age, that sweeping generalizations are more the norm than rarity.
In high school, those days of my past where computers barely existed, I would have never stood up in front of a group of my peers with knowing dam well I had done my research. There is no way I would have walked into a debate session with out many a fact, example and in some cases literal proof to back up the claims I was about to make. The word ‘all’ was rarely if ever used but percentages and statistics and from where they where sourced always were. I remember one debate topic being “Girls Need More Pocket Money than Boys.” My team was the affirmative and we walked into that school hall not only carrying all our notes and prep cards but a suitcase filled with the items a girl needs. It was my job to lay it all out in front of the teachers and 500 odd students as I spoke my carefully prepared words that molded into clear facts. We also laid out many a till receipt to validate our claims. Proof.
This week many have taken aim at that non-quantifiable 21st century podium, Twitter. Of course you cannot fire off your thoughts, theories and ideas about Twitter without it involving the people who use it. You also cannot have a discussion about Twitter without things like Facebook and blogs being brought into. One man, a popular well known blogger jumped into the fray and from my perspective, made some pretty big sweeping generalizations about its users and they were not positive or respectful words. The other thing that got me was he seemed to be saying all these things without ever actually having been on Twitter. He cast his dispersions, made judgments and assessments with no facts or experience to back it up.
I jumped in knowing full well that a close group of bloggers, of which I am one, would read what I was writing. I couldn’t quote facts because I am not sure there are legitimate, verifiable percentages and statistics on which to have an argument on such things as “infinite deluge of pointless human discourse. It takes brain farts and dolls them up as bumper stickers. It receives the groans and whines of the lonely and distributes them as junk mail. It’s a system for people who can’t stand to be alone, who have purchased wholesale this media-fueled idea that we are all “special”, that their every thought is a star in the great digital universe.” What I do have however, is experience. I am an active participant of Twitter and to even those who know me, do not know that I have a second identity on Twitter and it involves spreading what I think is the good stuff. A couple times a week I search through a myriad of tweets using words and themes and when I find a feel good indiscriminate sharing, I pass it on.
In high school, those days of my past where computers barely existed, I would have never stood up in front of a group of my peers with knowing dam well I had done my research. There is no way I would have walked into a debate session with out many a fact, example and in some cases literal proof to back up the claims I was about to make. The word ‘all’ was rarely if ever used but percentages and statistics and from where they where sourced always were. I remember one debate topic being “Girls Need More Pocket Money than Boys.” My team was the affirmative and we walked into that school hall not only carrying all our notes and prep cards but a suitcase filled with the items a girl needs. It was my job to lay it all out in front of the teachers and 500 odd students as I spoke my carefully prepared words that molded into clear facts. We also laid out many a till receipt to validate our claims. Proof.
This week many have taken aim at that non-quantifiable 21st century podium, Twitter. Of course you cannot fire off your thoughts, theories and ideas about Twitter without it involving the people who use it. You also cannot have a discussion about Twitter without things like Facebook and blogs being brought into. One man, a popular well known blogger jumped into the fray and from my perspective, made some pretty big sweeping generalizations about its users and they were not positive or respectful words. The other thing that got me was he seemed to be saying all these things without ever actually having been on Twitter. He cast his dispersions, made judgments and assessments with no facts or experience to back it up.
I jumped in knowing full well that a close group of bloggers, of which I am one, would read what I was writing. I couldn’t quote facts because I am not sure there are legitimate, verifiable percentages and statistics on which to have an argument on such things as “infinite deluge of pointless human discourse. It takes brain farts and dolls them up as bumper stickers. It receives the groans and whines of the lonely and distributes them as junk mail. It’s a system for people who can’t stand to be alone, who have purchased wholesale this media-fueled idea that we are all “special”, that their every thought is a star in the great digital universe.” What I do have however, is experience. I am an active participant of Twitter and to even those who know me, do not know that I have a second identity on Twitter and it involves spreading what I think is the good stuff. A couple times a week I search through a myriad of tweets using words and themes and when I find a feel good indiscriminate sharing, I pass it on.
Twitter for me is medium by which to connect with other people. It is not the only medium I use. In fact I’ll take face to face over a cup of good coffee any day but Twitter, along with Facebook and blogs, exists and I refuse to be frightened by it or to see only the negative aspects. When I wrote my response to this mans very public opinion I toned it down, turned some of my experiences into a third party perspective rather owning it was actually me, because I wanted to share the very heartbreaking understanding that my fellow bloggers and I went through earlier this year when one of our crew passed away suddenly. Unsure how they would feel about bringing up such a personal thing but determined get my point across I also gave myself a different identity. I underestimated these I people because the subsequent responses that followed have been amazing and yet the negative retorts have also left me feeling a little perplexed.
I sat down at this keyboard over two hours ago to try and make some sense of all of this. To grasp, if I can, some centre or balance between the good and the bad, the empathic and vitriolic. I am no closer to that but I do know that access to all things internet and web based is a privilege not a right. Yes the world for many of us is so much larger and easily accessible because of technology and that is a wonderful, magnificent thing but maybe we all need to remember that there is a human being behind every keyboard. Our words on that screen have impact. We need passionate, healthy debate if we are to continue evolving and creating and learning and discovering. I just cannot think of a good reason why we should use arguments and debates as a method to try and devalue one another.
