Twittering

Does Twitter Make You Stupid (Or Just Make You Seem Stupid)?

The jury is out, and will be deliberating for some years as to whether communicating in  140 character snippets (as on Twitter) will actually cause our cognitive processes to be negatively affected. It's not a trivial question for society, but we'll leave that to the researchers to study such things.

But what about perceptions? Is it possible that the 140 character limit, coupled with the impulsive nature of Twittering, will make you "seem stupid" to others.

To answer that, we have to consider two different types of Twitter users. First, there's the heavy users who really don't think much about the meaning of tweets, theirs or others, or, if they do think, are content to believe that their ideas and those of their 140 character co-tweeters are profound, accurate, and edifying. These folks, who make up the bulk of Twitter users (see endnote) are the people who live in a soundbyte world. Indepth thinking isn't their cup of tea. They often appear cognitively superficial, and even stupid. In a sense, they are not using whatever critical thinking they possess.

Agreeing, positivity, and niceness are valued by most Twitter hard cores way more than factual and informed discussions, which is why we get so much of the first and so little of the latter.

There's little worry you will appear stupid to those people, provided you write tweets with which they agree. The value of the tweets of others, at least for this large majority of Twitter players, lies in the social aspects so if something sounds cool, it, therefore IS cool. And if it sounds cool, it is than "true". They connect into Twitter, turn off their frontal lobes and off they go.

The second group of Twitter users values thinking, interacting, truth, fairness, accuracy and so on, in addition to the social aspects. They often are more highly educated, and work in professional fields like human resources, management and executive positions and LIKE to exercise their thinking skills. This is where the problem lies.

The Tweeting Challenge

As most professional writers will tell you, writing something in few words is much harder than writing the same thing in many words. The thinking involved for the former involves distilling down a bunch of thoughts into something that captures all of them without dumbing things down, or oversimplifying. It is exceedingly difficult, and that's one reason copywriting is so hard, because there is only limited space available to make the selling point.

The challenge, even for very bright people who write well, is how to express their thoughts within 140 characters, and still say something worth reading, beyond the social interactions that Twitter provides. Can it even be done? Perhaps, but I doubt that there is more than one person out of a thousand or more that can do it even occasionally. To do it consistently? The only person who seems to do it effectively, at least that I've found, is Seth Godin.

Everyone else that I've seen, who tries, comes across as having a fortune cookie brain. That includes me. It's haaaard.

Worse, though is that the 140 character limit encourages people to take things out of context and say the most silly things that are clearly wrong. That's when they sound like idiots. No, not just idiots, but ignorant idiots.

The Real Problem - Unconscious Incompetence

Probably almost all Twitter users understand the communication limitations, so the standards for what qualifies as "intelligent" are quite low. The perception problem occurs, though, when people become so used to  thinking that what they are posting is both complete and profound that they don't pay attention to what they post. The result is bad information or patently ridiculous tweets that are clearly false.

Since it's clear that Twitter users prefer positive tone and lack of criticism to negative tone and challenges, a person can post nonsense, and without feedback, believe he is making a positive impression.

Let's take a look at some examples. They are taken from the chat signified by the #custserv hash tag, or from users using this tag. This particular set is used because it happens to be one of the few chats I observe, and its a topic in which I am well versed. I don't mean to pick on anyone here.

Example #1: Oh those darned numbers: Take a look at the box to the right. You'll see a tweet from a fella "summarizing" some research findings supposedly from Purdue University. The post has been repeated many times, as is. Reputable finding? Important finding that's good to know if you are in customer service.

But wait. As written, can this be credible in the least? Is it possible 92% of customers (in the absence of qualifiers, that means ALL customers) form their opinions in this way? NO. Even a brief spark of critical thinking will tell you that this can't possibly be the case, since the majority of businesses do not HAVE call centres, period.

Putting aside what the numbers cited really say in the original study, what we know is that the original poster tweeted something that made no sense to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. He looks stupid to anyone who is not already convinced of what he is saying, and any intelligent person has to call into question the original poster's credibility AND the intelligence and credibility of those that RETWEET the nonsense.

The point isn't whether these people are stupid. The point is that posting stuff that's patently wrong makes tweeter and retweeters seem stupid. You wonder, "Why would intelligent people pass this on?" It's simple. First they don't check. Second, the 140 character limit means the original writer had to eliminate a lot of relevant details, or context.

Example #2: Trapped in a Fortune Cookie Factory

I mentioned earlier that Seth Godin seems to have mastered the ability to write short quotable tweets (or quotable blog-bytes), while actually saying something useful, at least on occasion. What happens when someone with less expertise (again, that would be most of us) tries to do the same?

My favorite fortune cookie "emitter" is a fellow named @knowledgebishop who posts multiple times every day about customer service. What is noteworthy is that he posts virtually nothing but soundbytes that...well, sorry but they sound like they were ripped off from the Kowloon Loon Fortune Company. Take a look at this tiny selection from a single day, and ask yourself the question: Would a person who actually thought about these agree that they were literally accurate?

DId you answer the question? If you did you are a better person than I, because it's hard to make any sense at all out of these, or believe that anyone would think this gross oversimplifications represent any reality in existence outside of one person's head.

As a business person who works with clients facing real business issues and problems, and who want real life business solutions, I'd say that for both myself, and my clients, the reactions to these kinds of tweets, the style repeated over and over day after day, is to completely write off the poster (and those that retweet) as people who have nothing whatsoever to offer. No credibility. Yoda not he.

Perhaps it matters not at all to KnowledgeYoda how he is perceived and by whom.  But that's not the issue. If you want to come across as credible and with something to offer besides empty words, you need to understand the limitations of tweets, and that what can sound nifty to you at first glance, may be wrong, misleading, and otherwise reflect on your competence. Too clever by half. At least among some.

Example #3: If You Don't Understand Research Keep Ya Trap Shut

It's common for people on Twitter who play advocacy roles to try to prove their points by citing research and numbers to bolster their fave position. No amount of explanation seems enough to correct people who make posts about research and numbers about which they lack the rudimentary skills to understand. Let's end our examples with another from KnowledgeBishop:

Now, this one contends that few people would prefer cheaper prices if it meant worse customer service. Numbers like this are posted regularly on the #custserv hash tag. To people who belong to the Church of Holy Customer Service, this post and its bruddas and sistahs, go unchallenged, lo even as they are retweeted to the nth generation.

But the numbers are misleading. To make meaning from this, we need to know in what sectors? Professionals who work in customer service know that it makes a huge difference whether we are talking about hotels and restaurants (where service is way more important) or gas stations, where customer service can`t possibly get any more absent anyway. The number is too `coarse`to mean anything.

But wait, there`s more. What do the respondents believe comprise customer service? Were they supplied with a common definition so the responses could be interpreted as referring to the same "thing". What ages were asked? And on and on.

Yet, there's more. It's survey data, and we know that what people say and what people do often do not match up. In fact, if you take a look at the companies that offer poor customer service, you'll see that most do remarkably well financially, and that the no-frills, lower service companies of today also do very well. Clearly this number does not match up with reality.

At the least it's a reflection of drastic oversimplifications, either by the "research company", and/or knowledgebishop and by the multitude of retweeters.

But for those in the know, it's junk. If you want to interact and do business with people who know what they are doing, this kind of posting and retweeting brands you as ignorant, and worse, the ultimate sin, being unconsciously incompetent and not caring enought to self-educate.

Conclusion:

In a sense it doesn't matter whether you are a bright light in the firmament of knowledge or a lesser wattage light on someone's desk. What does matter is how you are perceived by the people who are important to you. In business, if you want to work with the best and brightest, you aren't going to make it on silly tweets that make you look ignorant about the very topic you claim expertise in.

If however, you want to work with the people who spend a lot of time on Twitter AND don't give a damn about accuracy, preciseness, truth, and usefulness, and are wowed by a nice empty turn of a phrase, the the best thing to do is to keep tweets bland, agreeable, and sounding like the come from Kowloon.

Remember. Even if you are really really smart, Twitter can cause you to look really really stupid.

Robert Bacal, Apri, 2011

Endnote: The reason why the majority of heavy users on Twitter are not terribly concerned with accuracy and critical thinking is that users self-select. Those interested in sophisticated discussion and stimulation either don't try Twitter, or leave very quickly when they realize the conversations are sloppy, and full of inaccuracies. Of course there are exceptions, and some stay on because they enjoy the social aspects even if they can't have the high level intellectual conversations.