How to promote civility in online exchanges
In the 1970s there was a movement called Transactional Analysis. Every year, a TA guru from Sacramento, California, held a conference on interpersonal relationships, focusing on developing understanding and a loving attitude between people.
Now in the 21st century, we need interpersonal relationships, also about understanding each other and being kinder and more loving.
The problem is that few seem to be taking this sensible and generous approach to their online missives. Rather, it finds them attacking freely online in ways they wouldn’t face-to-face.
Most of us have seen blogs, comments, and comments online that are rude, hostile, and insulting.
While everyone should enjoy the right to free speech, this tone within comments and other posts stands out due to the sheer number of people writing accusatory and hostile things online and the context in which they write.
No matter the topic, you will find sarcastic and incendiary comments. I don’t know why people get so excited about someone’s opinion of Angelina’s latest hairstyle, which idol should win, her favorite ice cream flavor, or feelings about Howard Johnson’s on Route 1 in Pit Stop, Texas, when they don’t. make. even knowing the person, place, or thing being discussed, and when, is a trivial matter to begin with.
Who are they and what are they not doing so that they have time to comment on these things? Are they teenagers, retirees, men, young, rich, poor… are there certain traits that explain their complete abandonment of civility? That is a research project for an ambitious soul.
Whoever they are, these insulting ragers seem to have unlimited time, as if they don’t have to earn a living or take care of babies, or even feed their pets!
This phenomenon is in all contexts: you’d expect it in political forums and such, but it’s on shopping sites, business reviews, every YouTube video: comments about thread counts in sheets, bikes, paint colors, appliances , vitamins, whatever. . I say my son loved his Gap T-shirt and someone chimes in; “Idiot, you piece of s—, I have a shirt there and it got a hole in it in a week, how can you sit there and say that his clothes are good?”
Do people just think that what they say online doesn’t count? Like that rule about diet, if you drop it on the floor and then eat it, it doesn’t count toward your daily caloric allowance.
What can be done to stop this unpleasant phenomenon of interpersonal relationships? Indeed, we are capable of reconfiguring the e-race, the electronic version of the human race.
Since we are often rude in public, this is nothing new, these nasty comments and insults thrown like little wads of paper at classmates in the third grade.
But doesn’t it seem like it’s much more prevalent online than in public? If this is our modus operandi for internet decorum (oops…lack of), hiding behind our electronic devices, as if written speech is simply for other computers to read, not other human beings, if this problem not fixed quickly, we are likely to have a severe decline in the quality of the human experience.
There is nothing new here, but people can learn to think before they write. Getting into the habit of writing what they want, thinking that no one knows who they really are, is dangerous. Because with Skype and more advancements, we’re probably heading into an era where everyone is talking face to face on video.
Let’s do it:
Go back to that historic day when the Internet became accessible to citizens. This is what happens. They boot up and before anything else appears on the screen, they see a message:
Internet is for everyone. Here no one is better than anyone. It’s free for all of us. It is a privilege to have this amazing technology: a level playing field for the first time in human history.
Let’s not spoil it by being inconsiderate, petty and ignorant. Let’s think about how each key press will be perceived. That way, we won’t need the “powers that be” to rule in this new land. We will all agree to be civil, to share and sell goods and services without restrictions, and, yes, to express opinions without censorship, except for the application of a civil tone along with our opinions and a willingness to agree to disagree when necessary. the best choice. . We agree to place a moratorium on insults and cursing. Throwing insults can’t be right: it’s too sad.
If we cannot accept being civil, at least as much as we are in public, then this digital age will not serve future generations. We are its creator, so let’s be the creator of a smart way to use it.
Let’s learn from the car lesson. We pushed those cars and roads, never thinking that they would multiply like ants at a picnic. Unpredicted millions of people in their cars for hours every day, stressed out on the freeways breathing truck exhaust, isolated inside their tin boxes.
Just think: How would we have done things differently if someone had thought 100 years ahead, predicting that engine exhaust would cause disease and destroy the atmosphere, cars clog our roads, people on congested commutes, being robbed of your valuable family and personal time?
We agree to apply the same unwritten laws of civil behavior online that we apply in public places. Imagine if people talked in local malls and restaurants like they do online – it would be 24/7 chaos.
The inspiration for this article came from the Etsy site. Even though I don’t have any business on the site and am absolutely not promoting anything about it, they do have an exceptional and rarely (never?) seen guide page that touches on these very questions. Give it a read if you have a site and would like to set a civil tone.