Goodbye Silence, my old friend

ELLO Darkness, my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again.” That sums up how I feel about Twitter. It’s dark but, when you switch on the lights, you see the vastness for what it is – an echo chamber. You reach for the volume control.

But the sound of silence is contradicted by the cacophony of the words of the prophets. Much of it is garbage with the interspersion of the odd edible leaf or bean. Perhaps the clutter is due to its cheapness. If talk is cheap, then Twitter’s cheaper. You pay your small change and submit your tuppence-worth. Even where there is richness and depth in Twitter, shallowness lurks in silent shadows. The trolls are ever present.

With malice, some choose to walk the tweets of cobblestone. Some enter innocently but are caught in the whirlpool of insult, belittlement and condemnation. Even the most fair-minded statement gets twisted into fodder by the witch-hunters. Every straw can be processed into a poison arrow piercing past and present perceived enemies.

Worse, the silent noise from Twitter is appropriated by the intruder radio, summoned by squawking self-seeking spokespersons of the Offended Class to sever the arteries of any remaining claim to reasonable and constructive discussion.

Goodbye Silence, my old friend.