We used to go for walks in the wild and leave our tracks, like Pooh and Piglet and the Woozles; you could mark our progress, if you were a tracker, by the broken twigs or the thread of cotton caught on a bush. If we were really anti-social, you would find evidence of us in the bits of litter we left in our wake.
Now we walk in an ethereal world and we leave a trail of trivia in the tangled pathways of the digital web, by which we may be noticed and identified… or hunted. The trouble is, that we incriminate ourselves by what might once have been quickly overwhelmed by weather or overgrown by nature, but which is now non-biodegradable and there in perpetuity, for anyone to discover. And, if we happen to drop a tweet wrapper, the wet noses of the lawyers will sniff us out and pad inexorably along until we find ourselves surrounded by snapping, salivating jaw-suits.
We should have more respect for the world in which we now wander and treat it with care and goodwill; above all, we need to think about the possible consequences of thoughtless disregard for our environment and close properly other people’s gates and take our offensive twitter home with us.
Christina – What an elegant way to make such an important point! We really do need to be very, very mindful of what we tweet (or for the matter of that, what we publish in any part of the digital world). Our e-words can have drastic consequences and it is important to be careful what we say. That’s how the e-world can stay clean and self-sustaining…
Margot,
I’m interested to note how many people are/have been ‘shooting their tweets off’ without consideration of the consequences. I don’t feel inclined to insult or slander people in the street; why do it on Twitter?
I couldn’t possibly agree more, Christina. There is no need for that kind of behaviour and it doesn’t get one anywhere. I’m glad you brought this up.
Thanks, Margot!