Are you twitting me?

My son, God love him, is 15 and in the 10th grade. I recently was told by his teachers that texting during school was a distraction. He has become so sophisticated at texting that even with a broken screen (which I refused to fix, thinking it may resolve the problem) he can text in his pocket without looking at the letters. Now you can imagine how surprised I was to learn from Nancy Giles on CBS Sunday that Jurors and Senators are now twittering during trials and presidential speeches.

In my own experience, at events like AdAge, DPAC, and other industry events it is now common to see monitors that share tweets from audiences who theoretically are paying attention to the presenters or panels.

I went to Catholic school and while I was no angel I can’t imagine what sister Condradine(shown here in the middle of the picture holding her standard issue Smith and Wesson with the rest of her posse) would have done to me if I tried to tweet during my calculus class in the ‘80s.  I mean my buddies Greg, Brian and I had a pretty sophisticated communication system that included passing notes, hand signals and code words to mess around during class.

How I would have loved to have some monitors up in the classroom transmitting 140 character comments about the teacher!

Then of course as you can see they did have a Dirty Harry, "Go ahead, make my day" kind of approach to that stuff that is lacking in today's world.

But what do I tell my millennial son about paying attention in class if our nation’s leaders and jurors can’t keep their hands off their pdas during mission critical moments to send 140 character messages to lord knows who about who knows what? Shouldn't they be paying attention to the matters at hand?

Now in preparation for this article I did a quick google search on nancy's report and it seems like she is taking a little heat from the twitter enthusiasts, one of them even claims tiwtter was responsible for helping overthrow Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. How can you argue against that?

PS- I am on twitter at http://twitter.com/joshuablair

 

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Posted by Joshua Blair (March 30 2009 at 12:02) | Comments (24) | Permalink | E-mail

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Comments

David Wong (3/30/2009 1:13:14 PM)

Hey great article:

As a dad myself, I would just warn your son that many of his tweets will be publicly available and searchable. If he's considering going off to college or finding a job, many admissions counselors or managers may do a search for his name under twitter when considering making an offer to him. I'd advise him to never post anything he'll be ashamed about later.

Gloria Pflanz (3/30/2009 4:10:44 PM)

There is no way they can be paying total attention and still twitting. Just like talking on your cell phone and driving, there is not total attention. Scary, but everyone is doing it. Why has it become so acceptable?

laurie pastore (3/30/2009 7:10:27 PM)

My son and Josh's son are friends. For several months I drove them together to soccer practice. The boys were relatively quiet until one day, when Josh's son was jabbering away in the back seat. I asked him what had got into him, and he told me his phone was broken and so he couldn't text. Before that, on prior trips, we learned of his break ups and make ups with his girlfriend as they happened by text. My own son flips his phone open to read a text like a gunslinger whips out his gun.
Seems to me that a lot more talking and a lot less texting is what we should be advocating. So, don't fix that phone, Josh. And with the warm weather, they'll put their hoodies away, so they can't hunt and peck under the cover of pockets! At least we can hope for that.

Greg Linn (3/31/2009 10:03:01 AM)

My life isn't that exciting. Even in 140 characters.

Catherine (3/31/2009 9:16:03 PM)

Can anyone focus anymore? There comes a point when multitasking becomes some form of social schizophrenia. It's exhausting.

When I saw the Congressional tweets being sent...Oy. I'm all about direct engagement, but when you're tweeting your annoyance about the President's address interrupting your basketball schedule? Not right.

Deano (4/1/2009 4:41:03 PM)

I agree with Catherine, when will this become too much. I know the 140 character thing makes it easier to both create and consume these things but seriously. Tweeting during a congressional debate? Hmmm...

What I find interesting is that different people use these different channels for different things. I am trying to use twitter for "professional" conversations, facebook for personal conversations, linkedin for public professional conversations, email for wandering missives on internal things, and my blog for wandering missives on pretty much anything that takes my fancy. Several of my friends are kind of the opposite of these things (twitter for personal stuff, blogs for professional, ...). Will there ever be a "right" way to segregate this content? Will the semantic web help us tease these things apart? Should they be teased apart at all? Only time (and the crowd) will tell.

Kate (4/3/2009 4:45:33 PM)

In response to Deano, I don't think that there will ever be a standard way to segregate work/personal content-- which is why social media is so scary for many people. As a social media professional, I find that no matter where I am, there has to be a careful negotiation of my professional identity and my personal identity. As David noted in his earlier comment, there's no such thing as private on the web-- even email, as Sarah Palin learned quite publicly during the election.

The big question for the current generation of teenagers entering the professional sphere is whether or not all of the (searchable) content they've amassed on various social media platforms is going to be of consequence. When everyone's youthful indiscretions are public, do they hold the same weight for employers? Or will the assumption be that all kids will inevitably have one or two incriminating photos on Facebook and that's just life in these digital times? Should be interesting to see how that pans out. In the meantime, I am still very consciously walking that tightrope.

Indianapolis Web Design (4/19/2009 7:02:22 PM)

yep! its not just the teens...any of us can get caught up in the tweeting

internet dating sites (5/12/2009 10:06:12 PM)

We should watch out in tweetering.

hunting (7/31/2009 11:01:57 AM)

I had fun reading your blog! It was such a breath of fresh air coming from a very tiring day in the ofice. I suddenly had a trip down memory lane during my school days. I was teacher's enemy number one!

forex overdrive (4/10/2010 6:03:01 AM)

When I read your blog, I feel some relaxation, may be your written way Laughing
Let me follow you on twitter too. Cheers man.

Denver divorce attorney (4/13/2010 9:16:44 AM)

Yes, me twitted you man. Your blogs seems very interesting. Due to that I follow you on twitter too Smile Cheers buddy.

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