Mad as hell and can't take it anymore

A somewhat Howard Beale moment happened to me earlier this week and I came close to going to the lsquoeatenupbythesaleablearearsquo balcony and screaming at the top of my voice ldquoIrsquom as mad as hell and Irsquom not going to take this anymorerdquo Beale played by Peter Finch in the prescient movie Network is a television anchor who becomes sick and tired of broadcast rating games and politics that channels and their managements indulge in only to rake in more ad dollars One day he snaps Just like that Twitter battles Twitter is no longer an ideas forum it is a war zone PICTHINKSTOCK images I did not snap but I came close to it after enduring months of hatred on Twitter The hatred was never directed at me well almost never but there has been a sharp decline in the quality of discourse on what is easily the worldrsquos most influential soap box medium of our time Instead of debates there are personal jibes Instead of repartee there is vicious namecalling Instead of sharing knowledge there is hunting in packs in case your ideology differs from the others no matter what ldquosiderdquo you belong to Twitter battles are now routine between atheists and creationists BJP followers and Congress followers Narendra Modi fans and Narendra Modi haters Rahul Gandhi lovers and Rahul Gandhi haters IPL devotees and IPL haters those who think Obama is a Muslim and those who know he is not the list is endless As a result Twitter is no longer an ideas forum it is a war zone Herersquos what I did I unfollowed almost every political handle out there and signed up with those who follow or will educate me on my interests mdash journalism international affairs cosmology mathematics music books civil political analysis standup comedy movies food and in one case even a financial affairs nerd Since then here is what I have experienced on my Twitter timeline an easy calm and a sudden jump in my understanding of how some of the most interesting jobs in the world are conducted On Twitter I met my childhood idol the mathematician John Allen Paulos whose books on everydaymathematicsandstatistics spurred me to study the subject at the undergraduate level and later graduate in statistics I began to follow Joi Ito the director of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology His predecessor Nicholas Negroponte another idol of mine is a legend in academia and humantechnology interface and Dr Ito is no less I feel enriched just following his tweets If I am fortunate some day I shall get to meet him just as I got to meet Dr Negroponte on a few occasions I probably could not have done this if I had continued with my previous ldquoFollowingrdquo list Arguably I could do both things together Not really because the energy spent in repelling the negativity takes onersquos mind off from the beauty of science and mathematics that surrounds us all the time I would have not been able to enjoy National Geographicrsquos pictures or Scientific Americanrsquos announcement about the discovery of a new neighbour to our Milky Way galaxy I am not alone in feeling this growing unease on Twitter A few days back Rajdeep Sardesai editorinchief of CNNIBN an English language news television channel said that he wonrsquot tweet his political thoughts either Since then almost all of his tweets have been about music cricket promotions of his channelrsquos shows and suchlike But nothing on politics and current affairs that may draw the ire of some of his followers It is futile to analyse whatrsquos wrong with Twitter I often did that earlier and came up with either no answers or I felt helpless Earlier this week then the epiphany happened mdash I was so obsessed with the negativity that I had missed all the good things Twitter has to offer I turned my head towards positivity and everything changed This is not to say that the forum should not have belligerent voices Of course it should and that is what will keep Twitter alive It will keep giving voice to those who had none earlier And with the amplification that Twitter provides the most unknown voices get heard These voices can become a movement This is the mediumrsquos triumph indeed its raison drsquoecirctre But those voices need to be civil They need to engage not repel They need to debate and disagree not virulently quarrel If they do not my guess is many would just check out of Twitter even if not exactly leaveu00a0 Sachin Kalbag is Executive Editor of MiD DAY His Twitter handle is SachinKalbag