Recently, I have been making connections with various people on Twitter, and I am enjoying it very much. I don’t tweet anything particularly clever, but it is a pleasure to be able to exchange opinions with people I have never met in person.
However, to be honest, there are some things that I find difficult at the same time. That is debating. I am someone who likes to debate, but these days I find it difficult to do so on Twitter. A debate involves having a certain argument, which includes the reasons supporting it. There are also information sources. The reality is that these cannot fit within the 140-character limit. Also, when a debate is suddenly brought up, I cannot participate when I am busy, and even when trying to use it asynchronously, there are many cases where the debate has already ended, so I realize it is quite difficult.
Another thing that concerns me is flaming. This is the continuous occurrence of so-called “slander and defamation,” which is not limited to Twitter, but is something that can happen in text-based communication. In the fields of social psychology and social informatics, research on Computer-Mediated Communication like Twitter is quite advanced. Very interestingly, according to a survey by Castella et al. (2000) published in a textbook-like book on social psychology, “Graphic Social Psychology,” when they looked at whether there were differences in flaming between face-to-face, video conferencing, and email, email had the most (4.72% of all remarks), while face-to-face and video conferencing were less than 1%. Also, the rate of “casual” speech was 4.66% and 4.98% for face-to-face and video conferencing, respectively, and 8.89% for email. I haven’t checked the original source, so I might be missing some accurate points regarding the experimental design and background, but this kind of data was included. It is interesting. I would like to check the original source again sometime.
From the perspective of social presence, the difficulty of quoting is a painful point. Quoting remarks while clearly stating the person’s name enhances the social presence of the members, so according to Garrison, it is considered a good thing. I believe that quoting is important in the development of a debate, and that social presence is the key point that connects directly to learning, but I also think there is a danger that it could trigger flaming. Since flaming involves a kind of emotional remark, if one says that is also within the definition of social presence, then perhaps that is true. I recall that Garrison did not touch upon the relationship between flaming and social presence, so I would like to look into this area as well.
However, since we can sometimes see this situation on Twitter, perhaps calm and solid debates are difficult. Above all, what I felt was that the context of the conversation is missing in 140 characters, and it is painful that misunderstandings between debate participants arise.
On Twitter, I feel it might be better to limit it to confirming the direction of each other’s thoughts or asking and answering questions about factual matters as a foundation for face-to-face debates. Also, I think it is suitable for brainstorming, such as generating ideas where you basically do not criticize each other’s ideas, as you can hear ideas from various people.
Perhaps such a flexible way of using it is good. Passionate debaters need to cool down from time to time, otherwise, they might end up flaming, which will not lead to anything good, so one must be careful. I am also a debater at times, so I must be careful…