A disappointed Emily Seebohm after her silver medal performance. She later admitted her use of social media might have got the better of her.
A Perth psychology professor says Olympic athletes should put down their smartphones and get off Twitter to improve their performances.
Curtin University's Professor Martin Hagger said Olympic athletes had enough distractions and did not need any more.
He said sports bodies would be looking closely at their social media policies following these Games.
"If you're tweeting about the atmosphere, you're not 100 per cent focused on the job at hand," Professor Hagger said.
"It will be known as the Olympics where social media and Twitter came to the fore.
"After this Olympics most governing bodies will come away from it and have world championships and use it as a sounding ground for new policies."
Twitter may be known for its immediacy but Professor Hagger said athletes should not be sharing words and thoughts or processing other people's thoughts immediately before big events.
He said Australian swimmer Emily Seebohm may not be the only athlete who thought his or her performance was negatively affected by the distraction of social media.
"There is a suggestion that it does affect people's performance," he said.
"Athletes are fairly self-regulating people.
"Seebohm and others are realising they are too involved. I think with good dialogue with their coaches on the matter they can address it, they are generally disciplined people."
The professor said an athlete's performance could also be affected by negative comments made about them on Twitter.
Already at these games a Twitter troll has been arrested after he targeted British diver Tom Daley.
Tom Daley - a target of twitter abuse.
"The number of people on Twitter, pales in comparison to the number of people aware of comments made on Twitter," Professor Hagger said.
"People are tweeting and if it's newsworthy enough, the media will pick up on it and everybody will pick up on it."
However, the professor said Twitter could have some positive influences on athletes.
"Social media has really put a human face on athletes, especially those who may seem aloof or bland," he said.
"Interviews are very choreographed, athletes feel they have to give answers expected of them and you can usually predict what they will say.
"Twitter is a lot more personal."
Professor Hagger said every while every other aspect of an athlete's performance was micro-managed in the areas of diet, physiology, kit and transport, it was surprising that social media use had not yet been as strongly addressed.
He said athletes were blasé about Twitter because it had only really gained popularity in the past four years and appeared innocuous.
The social media trouble for Australian athletes started well before the games when swimmers Nick D'Arcy and Kenrick Monk were punished for photos in which they posed with firearms.