10 Examples of bad Digital Etiquette
When using the internet, whether it be for social media, messaging, file sharing or watching videos, there are certain societal norms that need to be adhered to if you want to avoid annoying or offending others. Due to the anonymous or non-personal nature of a large part of the internet, it is easy to forget our manners, and this can affect our personal if we were to act that way in personal interactions too. These are some actions that show a lack of good digital etiquette.
- Posting pictures of others without their consent
If you are at a party and happened to take a picture where your friend is in the background drinking, you need to seek their permission to post that image, especially if it can be found by the public. This is because pictures of people online in morally ambiguous situations can be found by their friends, family and even their potential employers and can cause them a lot of embarrassment. Just because you were the one that took the picture, does not mean that you have the right to decide whether it can be made public.
2. Complaining about your job on social media
This is a potentially disastrous action, as complaints about your workplace can be seen by your employers and other employees at the workplace. It might seem like a place to vent, but it is generally ill-advised. Some employees might think that you are talking behind their back or sharing information about them and employers are not likely to view these complaints with compassion. People insulting their bosses on social media have often been fired shortly after.
3. Sending an email expecting an urgent response at an inappropriate time
Emails are more formal than messaging on your phone but even with messaging this can be seen as rude. Contacting someone with a query at an odd hour such as late at night will not be rewarded with a swift answer, and expecting one will only lead to disappointment on your side and frustration on the side of the recipient. It is not the most pleasant feeling when you are about to log out of your email service late on a Friday, and you see an email sent just now with “URGENT” in the description.
4. Using up the local bandwidth when someone is doing their work
If you are aware that someone is doing some important work that could require the use of large amounts of bandwidth, please refrain from using up that bandwidth. This will result in the person experiencing bad connectivity and they will not thank you for that. For example, if someone living in your house is expecting a video call, it would be rude to start watching YouTube on the household Wi-Fi.
5. Sending photos or forwarded messages to all your contacts (they are not always interesting/well received)
Chain messages have become a widespread phenomenon on social media or messaging apps. They are messages that encourage the viewer to forward them to many of their contacts due to some urgency that ‘everyone’ needs to know. This is a common way that fake news is spread. Also, some think that it is a good way to share what they enjoy when they find a ‘cute’ picture or video and proceed to send that item to all of their contacts. This is not appreciated, as the recipient is probably not as interested in viewing these things as the sender is.
6. Getting into arguments on a work-related group chat
When people are chatting in workplace group chats, it is easy for disagreements that would otherwise be resolved in person to find their way into the conversation. It is important to keep things civil on these group chats, as messages sent online can be more menacing than if it were to be said in person, and others on the group chat do not want to be involved in that disagreement.
7. Acting on behalf of people without permission
Often when a divisive issue is at hand, someone takes it upon themselves to act and say that they are sending their messages on ‘behalf’ of people that they associate with. This has to be established before you can send that message and everyone that is being represented should agree to be represented beforehand.
8. Making inappropriate jokes on a serious group chat
It might be funny, but sharing inappropriate jokes always needs to be done with consideration of the environment that it is occurring in. For example, on a group chat for all the residents of an apartment building, it would not be appropriate to make sex jokes on there, especially as you never know when parents could have added their children onto the group
9. Expecting an instant response on a messaging app
This is more common than with email, due to the perception that messaging means that the communication is entirely informal. Even if you talk regularly with someone through a messaging app such as WhatsApp, it is not considered polite to expect an immediate response, and getting annoyed if someone takes an hour to respond is not practical. Often things that occur in life get in the way of answering any messages, like if your phone needs charging or if you need to talk with the neighbour.
10. Writing emails with short, snappy questions
When people are annoyed or when they don’t fully understand the language that they are using, they often send short, rude questions and comments. If a language barrier is an issue in this regard, it is also important to practice patience and ask more questions to clarify what they really mean.
Digital Citizenship 