One problem I see in social media is the lack of transparency behind our thoughts and ideas. It’s completely understandable because we are dealing with small amounts of information of which we need to extrapolate the entire message. You can’t properly gauge the tone of someones voice or even measure their response by any reasonable standard. So instead, we jump to conclusions and get defensive when someone disagrees with us.
We are all guilty of this including myself.
This is why it is extremely important to be receptive to all the information coming at you and try your best to understand it. Some platforms work better than others because of the tone they set and the amount of conversation actually happening. For example; video sites like UStream and Viddler are much more transparent than Twitter because you get a sense of tone and enough time to explain yourself.
Social media is a melting pot of personality!
What one person sees as an aggressive remark could simply be a light-hearted opinion to another. We all come from different background and we all have our own ideas as to what is socially responsible. However, if we are going to be putting ourselves out there we need to just put on a happy face and do our best to follow along. I mean, just by putting ourselves out there we are subjecting ourselves to the random judgments and opinions of others, so is there ever a “wrong answer”? Everything is open for debate in this space, as it should be.
We are all just trying to communicate and there is no wrong way of going about it. So instead of pointing out each others wrongdoings, lets work harder to learn and grow together. That’s why I am in this space and that’s why I am reaching out to you.
- Photo by kcdsTM
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Great post! I’m totally guilty of this, but sometimes I don’t remember that the internet takes away tone and it’s hard to judge plain text.