Technology is an amazing thing. We’ve certainly come a long way. In our age of social media, we have the ability to say essentially whatever we want, whenever we want, wherever we want. It’s allowed reporters to get facts to their readers, celebrities to interact with fans, and spread messages of social change through protests.

Still, it’s a gift and a curse. For every great, insightful thing someone says online, there’s probably a hundred really dumb things also tweeted. Blogging and news coverage has also come a long way, and it has in part allowed us to come together and laugh at the ridiculous things people tweet.

The talk of Tuesday was the NBA’s lifetime ban of Los Angeles Clippers owner David Sterling following his racist remarks about his girlfriend’s association with African Americans. After Commissioner Adam Silver issued his ruling, thousands took to Twitter to tell their thoughts on the decision.

Some of these people were profiled on the website Deadspin, who embedded these tweets on their post, allowing readers to tweet back at those who thought Silver’s ruling violated Sterling’s first amendment rights (sidenote: it doesn’t).

A little goal I’ve set for myself, and it should be one for you too, is to never end up on one of these websites. Always think before you tweet, especially if you’re chiming in on a hot topic that’s generating a lot of discussion. You can call it lazy journalism if you want, but those types of articles, based off your ignorant comments, are generating page views.

We saw it before when Buzzfeed posted its article full of peoples’ tweets about how they were moving to Canada in response to President Barack Obama’s health care reform. We see it time and time again when people send threatening tweets to innocent people who just so happen to have unfortunate names like George Zimmerman or Casey Anthony. This case of mistaken identity and a handful of angry tweets lead to a full-page write-up online, and there you are, looking dumber than ever.

I don’t send mean tweets to celebrities, so I don’t have to worry about having my handle ending up on a Jimmy Kimmel segment, but I’m very cautious to make sure that I’m not providing content for some list-icle writer.

If you do somehow end up on one of these blogs of shame, use it as a learning experience. Don’t embarrass yourself further. You’ve already done enough, probably much more than you ever thought you could do in a measly 140 characters.

The moral of the story comes down to not being dumb online. Twitter is like the world’s biggest bulletin board smack-dab in the middle of the world’s biggest city, the Internet. Anyone can read it, anyone can retweet it, and anyone can make a fool out of you.

Dominic Renzetti is a family and consumer science major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].