•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   

Lately we’ve had several cases of feathers being ruffled over words tweeted on Twitter. The latest fluff being caused by the highly respected (and also someone I personally know) motivator-cum-public personality Mario Teguh, whose words of wisdom and inspiration can be heard regularly on his highbrow show, “The Golden Way,” on Metro TV. Indeed, such is his eloquence and power to motivate listeners to believe there is indeed a golden way by which one can pursue one’s life, that Mario has developed a fairly large following.

His success is the embodiment of a good product, nicely packaged and effectively marketed to the right audience. Here we have a fine, credible speaker with quality messages of positive thinking and self-empowerment appearing on a high-quality television station (if I may say so myself) to a willing audience thirsty for knowledge and desirous of personal development.

On the Internet his presence is equally influential. His Twitter account has tens of thousands of followers — which, as it turned out, recently became the bane of his life when some pithy advice that he dished out on this 140-character microblogging platform did not go down so well with some of his thousands of followers and others in Twitterland, who happened to listen in to the conversation and subsequently generated a lively online discussion.

In short, it was not the sort of response that Mario expected, wanted or welcomed, and it prompted him to close down his Twitter account. This, as might be expected, did not end the discussion, but rather brought it out of the virtual world and into the mainstream media.

Now, I’m not so much interested in discussing the merits of the message that caused the heated debate or the equally questionable responses to the message. After all, everyone is entitled to their own opinions and their own ways of expressing them. What I find more noteworthy is the fact that all the different new media platforms that we’re now exposed to and have only recently begun to use with any frequency, such as Facebook and Twitter, also demand new ways of viewing and approaching communication that perhaps we all need to learn and get used to.

It may be that it’s “trendy” to have a Facebook or Twitter account, but at the end of the day, these platforms are merely tools for communication — and as with any tool, one needs to know how it works in order to use it well. Otherwise, it might end up hurting you or, as in the case of Mario Teguh, you may feel that it is not the best tool for you to be using even if millions of other people are using it.

Mario is used to communicating on a platform, whether on a glitzy stage with a live audience on television or in front of a large number of spectators who have come specifically to listen to him. It is basically a one-way communication with perhaps a controlled question-and-answer session in a setting that is polite and formal.

When we have meetings at the office, especially when management is present, the way we communicate is very different from when, for example, we gossip at the water cooler, chitchat in the canteen or meet after hours at a cafe or bar. When we’re at home we take on even more diverse ways of communicating, adopting different tones of voice and choices of words depending on whether we’re addressing the household staff, a spouse, younger members of the family, elderly parents or those with whom we’re having a romantic relationship.

When you open a Twitter or Facebook account, you’re basically entering a room that is more like the office pantry than a seminar or board meeting. Or, as most Internet users in Indonesia are young, urban, relatively well-off, with access to technology and enamored with novelties, it is more akin to entering a school playground or student coffee bar during recess or break time.

For many Twitter users the medium is great for venting and expressing opinions on anything and anyone, often without depth or thorough reflection.

If you’re a teacher, you know this is not the time or place that you expect to hear politesse and niceties being exchanged, or for bosses to hear complimentary things about their style of leadership.

Hence, for those who have an opinion but cannot stand criticism and the fact that others just might not share that opinion, or those who have an underdeveloped sense of humor when dealing with unruly verbal expressions and cannot accept that their words or points of view are not treated with reverence, social networking is really not for them.



Desi Anwar is a senior anchor and writer. She can be contacted at www.desianwar.com and www.dailyavocado.net.