Daily Times

No matter how you choose to live your online life, you can’t fully shield yourself from getting into a disagreement with someone at some point in time.

Recently senior officials of the Cantonment Board Clifton (CBC) rushed to the Sea View beach after a tweet regarding hospital waste dumped on the beach went viral.

The action was taken after Shaniera Akram, the wife of former Pakistan cricket star, Wasim Akram, posted a number of photos and a video of hospital waste dumped at various points along the beach.

Senator Murtaza Wahab responded to Shaniera Akram on Twitter on Wednesday which turned into an on-going exchange of words.

“Murtaza Wahab needs to call me directly if he really thinks my tweet was negative and there was only a handful of syringes. This is not a time we should be shifting blame, this is a time we need to all come together to do what is right for our city and it’s people!”, said Shaniera Akram.

Twitter isn’t the best at encouraging productive or meaningful conversations among users. More often, the platform served to spread misunderstandings, while plunging users deeper into echo chambers. Twitter hasn’t excelled at, and toward promoting “conversational health.”

Social media is at best, an unpredictable medium where conversations happen all the time, on Twitter—it all starts with just one reply to a Tweet.

But why do so many fights happen, particularly on social media? Usually, it’s because context lacks in text form.

Aside from the fact that your responses are limited to 140 characters (not long enough for a meaningful exchange of complicated ideas), the pressure of being entirely public adds a layer of panic and posturing that turns a debate into a battle for superiority.

The goal becomes not to convince or to understand, but to come out looking a certain way.

Twitter is an odd forum. But for whatever quirky reasons, it has become a central part of modern discourse. Our public conversation is richer for it. So rather than fighting it, let us embrace it.