How do you like your rush of blood to the brain?

Tweetened or untweetened?

Excuse me. I meant “tweeted or untweeted,” but you know how easily mistakes can be made when you're just typing the very next thing that pops into your head.

Ask Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, who was hammered by some current and former NFL players after a knee injury forced him out of the NFC championship game against the Green Bay Packers.

Did they tell him to his face? Did they call him on the phone? Did they compose a letter?

No, they tweeted the first thought that popped into their minds and launched it into the world, straight at Mr. Cutler's back.

Prior to the advent of social networking mechanisms such as Twitter, the thoughts that popped into their heads as they watched the game at home would have gone no further than their living room. Which is where the stuff that pops out of our mouths off the top of our heads ought to stay. Those words hardly ever deserve posterity, much less national publicity. Especially when they are ridiculing or criticizing someone, in this case someone who succeeded in leading his team to the NFC championship game while all the other players sat home, watching on TV, too many of them tweeting their brains out.

Yet, those rush of blood to the brain tweets took on the power of the written word and created a national controversy of storming criticism against Mr. Cutler.

As a society, we have clearly not yet come to grips with social media and all of its implications and ramifications.

Nor has the traditional media. Just because a celebrity tweets something doesn't justify its becoming national news.

A number of the current NFL players who tweeted their criticism at Mr. Cutler for not finishing the game-he would be diagnosed with a torn MCL-backtracked the next day, saying they had been misunderstood or that the words had been in jest.

That's precisely the point.

Twitter imposes a 140-character limit on those who, like the players criticizing Mr. Cutler, use a Twitter account for their posted tweets. How fully can one explain oneself using just 140 characters per message? Thoughtfulness would lead one to compose something clear and succinct but I've yet to see a celebrity tweet that seemed anything more than an off-hand reaction to something.

Thoughtfulness surely wasn't the motivating factor in the withering criticism of the Bears' QB. The tweets were entirely thoughtless. Classic rush of blood to the brain stuff. We've all done that, but generally sitting in front of the TV watching a game, shouting out some exclamation or some criticism, never hurting a soul.

But these tweets assumed the power of the written word for those following the athletes on Twitter and for the rest of us after the media made them national news.

There is a lesson there for all of us using the new social networking technology. Before you broadcast your thoughts, think about the impact. Tweet something as if the subject of your tweet were sitting beside you, and as if your life depended on the judgment, clarity and fairness of that tweet.

Tweet unto others as you would have them tweet unto you.

-JKW-