The undesirable consequences of Twitter

Damage to a brain structure known as the amygdala can result in a spectrum of social disabilities. Conditions such as Asperger's syndrome and autism, as well as less common conditions such as Kluber-Bucy syndrome are thought to involve some degree of damage or abnormality in the amygdala. One such condition is known as social-emotional  anagnosia. This is defined as the inability to perceive facial expressions, body language and voice intonations. Since these are part of normal communication and social interaction, the person with social-emotional anagnosia has a disability with regard to these functions.

The important thing to note is that inability to perceive facial expressions, body language and voice intonations results in a disability or impairment when verbal communication is limited. One may read a book magazine article, in which careful exposition by the author adequately compensates for the lack of non-verbal communication. What follows the word "however" often serves to mitigate any confusion that may have been caused by what preceded it.

If we take limited access to verbal clarification and combine it with an inability to convey non-verbal communication, we would expect to have impaired social functioning. Yet, this is in effect what we have with Twitter. This combined with the remoteness of a keyword an Internet connection from its intended audience, and one has a platform that is skewed toward boorishness, inanity, and pseudo-courageous provocation. The format of twitter makes it easier to express the less admirable aspects of one's personality then it does those that are more praiseworthy. It is easier to express destructive and hateful views, because those require less sophisticated diction, then it is to convey more constructive and worthwhile thoughts. This is particularly so when Twitter is used as a political platform. Ironically, although Twitter is ill-suited to conveying subtleties in the emotions of the writer, it is quite good at provoking base emotional responses in its audience. This is of very little benefit in rational political discourse.