My 7 year old son put me in a spot today . He came up and asked me what twitter is . I answered him using all my wit and vocabulary . The resultant conversation was quite an interesting one . It was so interesting that I wanted to share it with you in this post . I am sure that you will find this a light and very noteworthy . Here goes the whole story
It was a lazy morning . I was done with my chores and my son was done with his . Both of us sitting on the bed in a pensive mood . I connected to the net and started tweeting . He took one look at Tweetdeck and asked me what it was , I told him that I use it to tweet and that it is a twitter tool . He then shot me a quizzical look and asked me what twitter was .There began a lovely conversation . One that actually helped me to understand quite a lot of things myself . I told him to give me a few minutes to think and answer him . I organized a few thoughts and here is how it went .
I told him that twitter is a place on the internet where I meet and talk to a lot of people . He asked me whether it was like an office or a restaurant . I told him it is more like a party where people come and go as they wish and talk to anyone they want . He was now happy with my answer . He asked me how we talk , I told him that we cannot use more than 140 letters to talk at a time . He started laughing , I asked why and he said we do the same in school when the teacher is around , we use code , not more than 10 words he said .I was slightly amazed to hear that . He then asked me if there were any other rules .
I told him that what we say is called a tweet and the people who follow us are the ones that get to see it and share it further or talk about it . He told me that it reminded him of his school gang , they say and hear things that are said within the group and if someone says anything cool or funny ,it was then repeated in their respective friends circles separately . I told him that on twitter , this was called a Re-tweet . He was now very interested to know more . He asked me what kind of things we talked about . I told him that we shared information , thoughts and even jokes . I told him that when there was interesting news on a website , we shared links to it and others could see it . He told me that his friends often brought interesting books and showed good stuff to him . This time , I was smiling .
He then went on to tell me about “Katti” in his school , if someone was rude or annoying or brash everyone just ignored that person and pretended to not hear what was being said . I told him that we call that a block on twitter . He asked me if we had popularity contests and monitors on twitter , I told him that it was called follow count and tech support in twitter .
After patiently hearing all this , he smirked and said , ” So you guys created a school on the internet and called it twitter ! “
I thought about it and could not help but agree . Do you ?
this is super cute
I feel it will be more easy to read if presented as a dialogue
@aniruddha : Thanks ! I tried that but felt that this was slightly more in the flow . Will remember this the next time
The next time anyone asks me what Twitter is, I will redirect him to this post!
What a great way to describe Twitter! As a marketer, I’m always in danger of ‘over-describing’ so always love simplicity of how a child’s mind works – us adults could learn a lot if we listened to them more!
At least you had a receptive audience in your 7 year old. Explaining it to my 40 year old boss is harder.
”School on Internet”! I must admit that I wasn’t so knowledgable at that age, I meant that I would definitely not have patience in understanding much! A sweet conversation but some questions did baffle me!
@Suhasini : His level of understanding always amazes me !
@Ankit : That is a tough one , let me try and make a post of that
!
@Sue : Thanks a Ton for the kind words !
@milcom : Glad that you like it dude ! Thanks !
Aww… What a cute post! Thoroughly enjoyed it Shakthi. Your boy is pretty brilliant! I just bookmarked it to explain to my future kid(s).
How amazing kids are! Deep insight without knowing it & the ability to grasp without complicating it. An adult would take more time to gain half the insight. This is the reason why we should never let the kid within us desert us
A big hug for your sonny boy!
@Karthick :
Thanks and Glad to assist your (future ) kids !
@Kaveri : You are right about kids there
couldn’t agree more !
Great post, Shakthi. Your son is cute and smart. Like this! =)
@Tasha : Thank you and you know that I think the same about your kid too
I agree.
School was the best networking I ever had. Or rather college. Facebook or Twitter come after that. The only difference is, FB is the school where they talk less and play all the time.
ain’t that just cute?
I smiled while reading.
We should do this more often. With all kind of stuff that we are so used to, but children and elders don’t know about.
I always encounter problems when my grandma asks me what I am doing the whole day long on my laptop. What do I see there?
It’s always a challenge to find easy answers.
And that actually also proves how we understand things.
@Gloria : I agree completely
@Harshit : Right on about FB there
I think it was your kid who explained twitter to you
I too always thought twitter is mere a reflection of our own life..
Loved ur convo n explanation for twitter to a child.. n most imp was his way of recipocating n understanding it.. Nice Post..
It is actually a school but only the class rooms are much bigger and spread around the globe
and you must tell your kid that you’re are a very popular bloke in the twitter school
@vivek : You got that right
@prianca : Thank you !
@rahulanand : My son will never believe that I am popular at anything
I’d be concerned about my son taking part in shunning kids in school. That’s not the way to handle any societal problem, and it’s cruel. I don’t like the way you just sort of dismissed it as normal. “Cliques” are a form of bullying. Might want to address that.
I thought this was really cute lol. I have a friend who doesn’t get what Twitter is and I feel like I explained it sorta similar to the way you did. She still doesn’t get it though. =/ At least there are some links and what not that I can show her that will explain it in much more detail then I did.
Yes, a school’s primary objective (besides showing kids some books) is to gather them around and teach them how to behave in a group.
Great insight from a 7 year-old, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him as a Media professional sometime in the future. My best regards to you both!
@Margaret : You have a point . Will keep that in mind !
I always love child’s logical. Gives you a good mirror on the life we live.
wow, what an insightful 7 year old! I really enjoyed reading this
Very interesting conversation about twitter and nice comparisons with the perspective of a 7 year old:)
@Sajeev Glad that you like it ! Kids do have insight that we tend to sometimes grow out of when we become adults and that makes them extremely thoughtful and creative !
interesting.. how old is he
lol. i am sorry i meant which class is he.. not how old is he( u have said he is 7 year old)
@Sinthanai Saral He is now 8 and a half years old and studies in 4th standard.
It was really a cute conversation between you and the kid.. No other way than agreeing his thought. Twitter is a school, probably admin may be a teacher..
Ask you son, what would he think about Facebook? probably it may college….full of fun and joy.
@Thiru Will ask him and probably post that too! Thanks for the comment!
Pretty interesting story!