Mal Fletcher comments on the Scottish Independence debate

The limits placed on numbers of characters - Twitter's 140 keystrokes, for example - allow little room for nuance. Everything must be said in the bluntest way possible. Attempts at irony are often misunderstood.

Social media platforms also produce the illusion that everyone is a broadcaster; that we're all imbued with the technological power to reach - and be heeded by - millions of people.

They may also contribute to delusions of grandeur, encouraging us to think that our comments are more insightful than they really are - after all, millions of people can potentially read them. In truth, even people with large numbers of social media followers can expect only a small number to notice a particular comment and far fewer to actually read it.

Indeed, the vast majority of social media streams attract only a handful of regular followers and even fewer occasional viewers. This might explain the frustration that drives so-called 'trolls' to bully, badger and insult their way around the twittersphere.

For all that, platforms like Twitter can be instructive. If, that is, if you keep in mind the likely myopia of individuals who feel so strongly about an issue that they'll spend an hour or more hammering multiple hasty microblogs into overworked smartphones.

During this particular debate it was interesting to note how often Twitter supporters of independence referred to the 'Scandinavian model'.

I'm not sure this featured much, if at all, in the debate itself - the newspaper reports I've seen don't appear to mention it - but it seems to serve as a utopian standard of what might be achieved by brave Scotland were she to break ties with the UK.

My family and I lived in Scandinavia for just under a decade, starting in the mid-90s. We were based in Copenhagen, a beautiful, romantic city and, it has to be said, one that provides a great environment for raising children.

My work constantly took me to cities across the Nordic region.

I loved many aspects of living in Denmark and working closely with people in so many other parts of northern Europe. I still retain healthy links in some of those areas.

Still, I found the constant references to Scandinavia in last night's social media coverage baffling.

Are some thinking Scots seriously suggesting that they might quite like to pay in the vicinity of 60 percent of their income to the state, in one tax or another?

Is being part of the UK so onerous that effectively working 60 percent of one's time for the Scottish government would be a better option?

Has anyone stopped to consider that Norway, often held up as a paragon of virtue among small, plucky nation-states, is also among the highest taxed nations in the world? And that its tax rates remain high in spite of the fact that successive governments have stashed away mountains of Kroner from North Sea oil sales?