Does Your Mother Know What You Just Said?

Yesterday (2/24/11), I watched the Space Shuttle Discovery launch on its final mission. For me, it was a bit personal as I had the pleasure of interviewing Discovery crew member Nicole Stott during her previous mission to the International Space Station in 2009; a very cool experience.

As I watched the launch, I was also following the stream of tweets flowing in on Twitter as those of us in the Twitter-sphere shared the experience together. During ascent to orbit, I saw a piece of debris strike Discovery’s delicate heat shield (a similar strike is what doomed the space shuttle Columbia in 2003). Stunned by what I saw, I immediately tweeted about it on my personal Twitter Account to see if anyone else had witnessed the event (scroll to the bottom of this post to see the video. The strike occurs at approximately 5:20).

Even after eight years, the loss of Columbia is a painful memory among space flight enthusiasts, not to mention those at NASA. We don’t like the inevitable jokes about NASA’s failures, especially when brave people lose their lives. From my perspective, I was asking a serious question about something that I felt was important. Unfortunately, someone misinterpreted what I said.

Chris Kernaghan (@BoobBoo on Twitter) was reading his Twitter feed at the time of the launch. He saw my tweet, thought I was joking, and wasted no time letting me know what he thought of me (see highlighted tweet in screenshot).

Herein lies the lesson; while I can control what I say, I cannot control how others interpret what I say, and it’s that interpretation that often gets people in trouble as they use social media. The ironic thing was that I had this in mind when I wrote my tweet. I even tried to qualify my question by adding that I “saw it on the ET camera” in the expectation that people would understand I was being serious. As you can see from the screenshot, most people did, but not everyone.

After convincing Chris that I was serious, he apologized (unnecessary, but appreciated) and was even gracious enough to allow me to use him as an example in this post (thanks, Chris!). However, this situation begs broader questions, such as…

• How far should I go to make sure people clearly understand what my intent is?
• How carefully should I choose my words online?
• Do I have a right to challenge someone who misinterprets what I say?
• Should I challenge someone who misinterprets what I say (as in, am I drawing attention to the issue)?
• Where do I draw the line when participating in public conversations (as in, how paranoid should I be)?

Certainly, these questions could go on Ad infinitum. Perhaps it’s enough that I am cautious when I participate in online conversations. Perhaps it’s not. Perhaps we need a new set of tools to let people know when what we’re saying actually has other meanings (such as the recommendation to add a symbol for sarcasm to the keyboard).

When online, I follow the rule to never say anything that I wouldn’t want my mother to read. What do you think? Please leave a comment and let us know.

The strike occurs at about 5:50.