It바카라s been called 바카라a graveyard of bullies바카라 by Chetan Bhagat. American talk show host and political humorist Bill Maher often describes tweets as brain farts. Lamenting his deteriorating Twitter experience, Pritish Nandy writes, 바카라The virtual worlds we build are eventually becoming an exact replica of our own dystopian society.바카라 All of that is real and it is what makes Twitter a complete experience. And since it바카라s the season of making unwise predictions, let me be audacious too: Twitter will not die. It will be the path to survival for the human race. It will remain a significant influencer of politics, culture and human behaviour for a long time. It will evolve or mutate, just as the human species does, and it will be the barometer of our evolution or our decay. This is why it is important.
To me, Twitter was a revelation. I was not an early adapter. During my flirtation with 바카라activism바카라, I was pointed in the direction purely for utility, by colleagues. Working on the Right to Information and later the Jan Lokpal movement, it came across as a free and effective tool바카라so I was told (and it delivered)바카라to amplify one바카라s voice and reach out to others for support and to organise. For me, there was no pleasure or fun element to it. It was part of my job as a wannabe activist. But then I discovered the bogs of political thought, the dangal of rajnitik daav-pench and nukkad of gaali-galoch. It had the raunak of a chaotic mela. It was the world in my palm, a study in human emotion and culture, and on how we engage with each other, on trends (not hashtag trends, but real pop culture ones) and frustrations, prejudices and personalities. It was as transparent a landscape as I had ever seen. All in one place.
What has been pointed out way too often is that a tweet is a fool바카라s uninformed rant, not a deeply thought out profound articulation바카라except when it is. And it often is, inadvertently. You want to know about a person, check out his or her Twitter timeline. It has helped me get to know so many people so much better. For me, that바카라s the quintessential Twitter experience, other than trying to create 바카라social media buzz바카라 and direct traffic to our news critique portal, www.newslaundry.com, which I try to plug at every opportunity I get (see what I did there?). But other than that, it is how I judge people. Yes, I know one shouldn바카라t be judgemental. Don바카라t judge me, but you will, it is human nature. My Twitter timeline will serve you better.
Traits of our personality that we otherwise keep under wraps when in physical proximity바카라where our tolerance thresh-holds are higher and we바카라re trying to be socially compatible바카라are revealed on Twitter because the intimacy of being alone with the world through a keyboard makes us a little more reckless and honest. Also, not having to deal with instant consequences of our utterances brings out the person hidden below the many layers of politeness, cowardice, thoughtfulness, decency or any other characteristic that having to fit into a society has thrust upon us. Psychologists have come up with a phase for this behaviour바카라the 바카라online disinhibition effect바카라 as I learned from Time magazine. We reveal ourselves in profound ways바카라the bully, the meek, the eager to please, the needy for attention, the lonely, the angry, the righteous, the angry because they are lonely or righteous, the coward, the bigot, even the very careful and guarded who do not want to reveal much about themselves will be found on Twitter being very careful and guarded and unwilling to reveal much about themselves바카라which tells us much about them. Hell, sometimes I can even tell who바카라s got a crush on whom by their Twitter conduct.
What Twitter reveals about society is way more fascinating. I remember watching a talk online (possibly a Ted Talk) where the speaker described the biggest game-changer in the journey of motor-vehicle safety in the early days of the motor car. It wasn바카라t the gear or an innovation in braking technology. It was the speedometer. The dashboard that told you how fast you were going. And just making 바카라the invisible visible바카라 brought down accidents by a factor way beyond anything had before the speedometer. Because now we could see what we merely knew. Sure, people knew going fast was unsafe, sure they realised they were going fast when they stepped on the gas, but until they saw it on the needle right before them through the steering wheel, they didn바카라t act to correct themselves. Showing them exactly how fast they were going did what invisible information could not. Twitter has that ability to hold a mirror to us as a society.
To share a personal experience, I have often been told by friends and acquaintances that I have a tendency of being very aggressive and often rude. I kind of agreed for the sake of politeness, but not really. Twitter showed me that in real time. An innocent question sometimes elicited a searing response; a good-natured jibe was met with a scathing insult. I saw me in front of me in real time, my own behaviour written out by me for me to read. It told me something about myself that many had told me several times earlier, but Twitter made the invisible visible. It was a personality dashboard. And it was more effective than any whiny complaint by over-sensitive friendly types or holier-than-thou good-natured 바카라feedback바카라 by defect-laden pop psychologists (Yes, I know바카라irony alert. Congrats, you just came up with the most predictable comeback, ever) who should just shut up. I바카라m still working on the course-correction.
But seriously, Twitter makes the complexity and ugliness of society visible. If people feel trolls are ruining Twitter, they have just got a taste of what the world is. Online trolls aren바카라t ruining Twitter; they are doing a service by making the invisible visible. Physical world trolls could possibly be ruining the world, and now we can see it in on a map바카라that바카라s Twitter.
Twitter is the only place where strangers will breeze past each other and exchange the vilest and most personal slur and nod (tag) an acknowledgment a few days later. It바카라s where those who feel weak and irrelevant will find their voices and voice their anguish in full public view. It is the online equivalent of a full-blown flip-out in the middle of a public square. Bullying in the physical world happens in hostel rooms or locked-up classrooms; online, it happens sare-aam for all to see and judge or collaborate. We can see what we are.
This is indeed transforming the world. How would human behaviour change with Twitter being part of our lives? How would relationships change, how would our engagement with each other be influenced? Substantially. The possibilities are endless. New laws will have to be drafted on account of problems never faced before. New medical conditions will need to be dealt with.
On the bright side, a new acknowledgment of the collective conscience (or its absence) will emerge. Brushing it all under the carpet will no longer be an option because invisible anxieties will be visible. New problems will be thrown up and new solutions revealed. Who knows what applications one could put Twitter to? Psychologists and psychiatrists could use Twitter timelines to study behavioural patterns. Forget about asking aunts or uncles and trying to track down relatives for doing background checks on prospective brides and grooms, the Twitter timeline will be the new age bua ke damaad se poochna woh ladka kaisa hai. Sentiment analysis and political trends are already an area all social networking sites, including Twitter, are working on.
In the future, the very existence and direction of the human race could be graphed and plotted by the Twitter timeline of humanity as a whole. Even if we can바카라t fix the impending self-inflicted Armageddon in time, the survivors of the rupture of the human race could see on a graphic the exact point and ridiculous hashtag where mankind went over the tipping point and reached the critical mass of suspicion, cynicism, rage, hate and destruction to sound its own death knell. How awesome is that? Yes, the future looks mighty bright. That may be an overstatement, but what the hell, it바카라s the age of reckless prophecies on Twitter.
(Abhinandan Sekhri is co-founder and CEO, www.newslaundry.com)
