Few of us took precis-writing seriously in school. Possibly, if we could have foreseen twitter and had an inkling of what a big thing it would become, we might have paid more attention to precis while spending less time on spelling. Increasingly, it is becoming difficult to distinguish between a person who spells badly and one who has merely mastered the knack of keeping thoughts to within 142 characters.

We are encroaching more and more on the world of birds. First, we invented airplanes, so we could, like birds, fly. Then, we encroached upon forests to build our own houses there. We even built tree-houses and tree-hotels. Now, we have started tweeting. Worse, more often than not, we do so with a bird-brain.

Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner had apologized after a tweet mocking the Chinese English accent. And this when she had gone to China to seek loans for her country! (I wonder if she got any). Satya Nadella had to get on the defensive after a tweet of his went viral. Twitterazzi is the new paparazzi. In this world of tweets, if you can’t control, you get trolled.  In the recent Salman Khan case, singer Abhijeet got into hot water following a senseless tweet. And actor Rishi Kapoor got himself tied into all kinds of knots after tweeting, repeating, repenting, refining and redefining his tweets on the so called ‘beef ban’ in Mumbai. I guess ‘Think before you tweet’ is the new ‘Look before you leap’.

I am not too much into social media myself. But I started tweeting last year @bhaskarpg. I only did it because I didn’t want my 89 year old dad to beat me to it.

PG Bhaskar is a private banker and a former Khaleej Times’ Friday humour columnist. He has authored several books and tries hard to keep up with the times @bhaskarpg and www.pgbhaskar.com. Look out for his weekly humor column on B-Change Saturdays.

Featured Image Artwork: Bhoomika Ghaghada