Anger and social media: The case FOR blogs

A recent column by Joe Nocera in the New York Times caught my attention. Nocera is one of many excellent opinion writers at the Times. David Brooks is my favorite, but Nocera's pretty good too. It should be noted that Nocera had the guts and gumption to stand toe-to-toe with the NCAA in a series of scathing reports and columns in the past. In his recent column, he wrote about Twitter in an article entitled “My Case Against Twitter.” I am not on Twitter, but I probably will have to take the plunge into that medium at some point -- in order to stay relevant and current in the coaching ranks. Many of my brethren (including Coach Chuck) can be seen Tweeting updates at meets and elsewhere. It makes sense. That’s the way these things work, deny then succumb: In the past, I said I’ll never text, now I text a hundred times a day. I must evolve into order to survive in a young person’s world. There were a few lines in this recent Nocera column that intrigued me. One was an off-hand reference to a Tweet that said “blogs still exist?” The other was this paragraph, from near the end of Nocera’s column:

What I object to most of all is that, like other forms of social media, Twitter can be so hateful. It can bring out the worst in people, giving them license to tweet things they would never say in real life.

Amen, brother. Professional athletes and entertainers and politicians routinely get in trouble, get demoted, get fired or otherwise sully their reputations because of their impulsive 140-characters-or-less Tweets. Listen: Anything that we put out on the Internet is for the world to see and is for keeps, even if we take it down. However, Twitter and Facebook – with their brevity and instant gratification – can be particularly dangerous when you Tweet or Post without thinking thoroughly or without a self-filter. The same, I suppose, can be said for blog posts. But I’d like to think that with blog posts, maybe there is less of a chance to say or do something regrettable. The blog format’s longer form (more than 140 characters ... most of the time, anyway) tends to take a bit more forethought and maybe even writing and rewriting. You know, that old-fashioned stuff, for which apparently our society has little patience.

So, I’ll keep blogging in a world in which blogs seem to become less and less relevant. No promises, but I suppose at some point I’ll probably be Tweeting too. Don’t hold your breath on that one. I will cave in only when necessary, or when told to do so by my superiors (which has been threatened, and may well happen soon). In any event, keep checking here, please. I’d like to think I’ll keep the longer form going for a while as well.