Twarma: Social networking consciousness and responsibility

Twarma. A simple word. A made-up word. But nonetheless one that inspired me, prompted me, urged me to think and ponder what it is all about and how we should be using this wonderful little service by the name of Twitter. Although the basic idea could be applied to nearly any social media.

The word came up for me when i was commenting how spam bots seem to target certain phrases or words so that when used you seem to immediately get bombarded with tweets from this ne’re-do-wells.  A friend replied with the simple tweet “Twarma“.

Every action has a reaction, every statement has consequences.  Its easy to forget that everything we say and do when it comes to social networking is being sent out into the world in hopes of finding the people you intended it for, as well as potentially an almost infinite number of people who may be offended or inspired or intrigued or baffled by your remarks.  And not just in the moment either, sometimes much much later.  We are not just talking to a small controlled known group of listeners anymore.

Sites like the internet archive for one, store data that may have been removed from the internet.  Also most search engines keep cached copies of web pages to speed up access, whether from downed sites or busy servers, amongst other reasons.  What this means is even though you may have removed the info, deleted your blog or website, or changed your status, or tweeted hundreds of times since, it is still most likely out there somewhere.  All that old info is still out there to be found, and with a little digging anything you say , good or bad, could be dragged back up at a later date. Aside from this, we need to remember to be socially conscious when it comes to what we say, not just because it may come back to haunt us, but it may offend someone in the moment as well.  I’m not saying we should be censoring what we say, but we should be comfortable with everything we say and not have a reason for regret.

One thing that has always stuck with me since my days in college “the mic is always on“.  One of my instructors said this and it stuck with me in all its incarnations, whether on the phone, in front of a mic, a camera, or writing something – even something as simple as a tweet – the mic is always on – you never know what will come back to bite you in the ass later, so be careful what you say.

tcg.