Digital etiquette? It’s complicated
From dinner tables to oversharing and unfollowing a former friend, here’s an etiquette guide for the digital world.
There’s a time and place for mobile phones and the personal information they contain. From dinner tables to oversharing and unfollowing a former friend, here’s an etiquette guide for the digital world.
EMOJIS
I love them and use them all the time, particularly when texting. In fact, when I send a text and I haven’t used any emojis I look at it and think it lacks colour.
Emojis are really just for fun but they can help to add or clarify the tone of your message. It’s so easy when sending a short message to be misunderstood at the other end as curt, rude or in a bad mood.
Adding an emoji or two helps to convey to the reader a little more information. They can speak volumes, but they are usually best used when you know the person you’re messaging.
After one or two messages between a new professional contact you can start using emojis if you think they are simpatico. After a while an emoji can take the place of any actual words in a text message or email, like a form of shorthand.
They work particularly well on Twitter, where space is at a premium — just check out the Twitter feed of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop if you want to see how they can be used effectively (twitter.com/JulieBishopMP). If you’re the kind of person who gets offended when people use emojis in texts or emails then maybe you need to lighten up a little. Emojis in a formal letter or document, on the other hand, are best avoided unless you are writing to a cartoon character.
MOBILE PHONES AT THE DINNER TABLE
I was at a lunch not long ago where the waiter had to manoeuvre six mobile phones out of the way so he could place the food on the table. It has become more of a problem as mobile phone screens have got bigger. I must admit that I occasionally put my mobile phone on the dinner table but mostly it’s because of a lack of anywhere else to put it. Bigger phones are harder to keep in your pocket when you’re sitting down but, that said, I sometimes have it on the table even when I have a bag at my feet.
In my home, mobile phones are banned at the dinner table but for some reason they find their way on to the table when we’re in restaurants. If you’re dining alone then do what you like — in fact, reading on your phone is a great way to amuse yourself when you are dining solo and you don’t need good lighting to be able to read it. But for the times when you’re with company, here are some rules about the use of mobile phones at the dinner table.
● The phone should be face down — unless you’re a parent who has left children at home with a babysitter and they might need to contact you, or you’re a doctor on call.
● If you are expecting an important call then tell your dinner companions at the beginning of the meal and excuse yourself when your phone rings to answer your call away from the table. Likewise, if you’re expecting an important text then excuse yourself when you attend to it.
● Periodically checking your emails while you’re at dinner may give your companions the impression you’re bored with their company. Checking Instagram or Facebook definitely gives that impression. If you really can’t stand not checking Instagram, Facebook or your emails for the duration of the meal then take your phone with you when you go to the bathroom and relieve your frustration in private.
● For business lunches the rules can be a little more relaxed as you are on work time, but do try to devote most of your attention to the business lunch.
For weekend dinners with friends these rules should be strictly adhered to. We all lead busy lives and sometimes co-ordinating everyone’s schedules and dietary requirements to be at the same restaurant at the same time is nothing short of a miracle. Don’t waste time looking at emails that can wait until later.
OVERSHARING
Some things — such as close-up photos of horrific dental work — do not need to be shared on social media. As I write this section I am trying to stop myself from throwing up, as I have just seen a photo on Facebook of the inside of someone’s mouth with a purulent abscess. I mean, I’ve been there and had painful dental work before, so I sympathise a little, but no one — and I mean no one — apart from your dentist should have to look at that. And who took this photo? Did you ask the nurse to do it?
From what I’ve been able to observe from following what it turns out are a lot of rather needy people on social media, it seems that oversharing, particularly of traumatic, depressing or difficult things, is motivated by a need for sympathy and attention. I know someone on Facebook who has the body of a god and he posts a lot of photos of himself with his shirt off. And why wouldn’t he?
He looks amazing. But the captions often go something like this: “Skipped the gym today and had ice-cream instead. Yikes!” The response he is trying to illicit is along the lines of “You look awesome!” or “OMG, you’re so hot” or, better yet, just a fire emoji. And he gets those comments, in spades.
If you’re an oversharer out of a need for sympathy or attention then you may start to lose followers — or, worse, people may start talking about you and your posts for all the wrong reasons.
Despite the fact social media has allowed us to share every intimate moment of our lives online to people we may not know, a little bit of mystery can go a long way.
Some things, such as the graphic details of your root canal work, are best kept to yourself.
UNFRIENDING SOMEONE
In many ways social media has redefined the concept of friendship. I’m sure I speak for many people when I say that I have a lot of friends on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter who I rarely — if ever — see in real life (I use the term “unfriending” here, but it also applies to unfollowing people on social networks such as Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram). Being friends on Facebook doesn’t necessarily imply the same level of affection as being friends in the real world. So if you no longer want to follow someone on Facebook because you’re sick of the types of posts they share or they post too frequently, then the way to do that is to unfollow them. It’s very easy, it usually doesn’t cause any offence and it’s a much nicer word than “unfriend”.
If you want to stop seeing a particular person’s posts in your timeline then all you have to do is find a recent post by them and click on the arrow in the top right-hand corner of the post to view the drop- down menu. There you’ll see an option there to “unfollow” the person and, as it says, you will stop seeing posts but stay friends.
If you really want nothing more to do with them then go to their profile page and choose “unfriend” from the “Friends” menu.
This is something you should reserve for people you really don’t want to be friends with in any capacity. We all have those people in our lives; friends of friends who, for one reason or another, you don’t particularly like. Or people you’ve had a huge falling out with and want nothing more to do with. It’s nice to be liked by everyone, but as you get older you realise how unrealistic that is.
If you don’t want to be friends with someone in the real world then don’t accept their Facebook friend request if you get one.
A word of warning about unfollowing someone: if it’s someone you see socially from time to time and you are no longer receiving their posts on Facebook, chances are you may miss an important moment in their life. It may be a holiday, the death of a parent or a rant they went on about something or other. They may ask you if you’ve seen it and if you don’t know what they are talking about then the cat is well and truly out of the bag.
Feigning ignorance and claiming that you haven’t been on Facebook for ages won’t work if indeed you have been on Facebook because the person you have unfollowed will quite possibly have seen your activity. Depending on how you have your privacy settings configured, something as innocent as liking someone else’s post can be your undoing. So, if you unfollow people on Facebook then get your privacy settings figured out. Or blame it on that annoying Facebook algorithm, but if you do that you should know what you’re talking about.
WALKING AND TEXTING
Years ago I received a press release from a university trumpeting the results of a recent study into sleep problems. The results of this extensive survey concluded that people who slept with their dogs — wait for it — slept less deeply than people who didn’t, and as a result complained about being tired during the day. No shit, Sherlock. As the owner of a dog that sometimes sneaks on to my bed after I have fallen asleep I, and probably every other dog owner on the planet, could have saved these researchers a great deal of time.
A report published in 2014 by the University of Queensland about a study into the effects of walking while texting came to the conclusion that texting and, to a lesser extent, reading on your mobile while you walk “affects your ability to walk and balance”, said lead author Siobhan Schabrun. “This may impact the safety of people who text and walk at the same time.”
Stop the presses! Who knew that if your eyes are not on where you are going then you run the risk of falling over or walking into a light pole or oncoming traffic?
I shouldn’t get worked up about this but I can’t help it. I’m sick of having to walk down the street and dodge people as they walk, faces down, looking at their smartphones. Or trying to walk down a flight of stairs while some idiot in front of me is reading on their phone and walking slowly enough that they don’t fall over, and therefore slowly enough to annoy the person behind them. What annoys me about this is that the person who is walking and looking at their phone just assumes that you will get out of their way. Sometimes, when I’m really annoyed by it, I like to accidentally — on purpose — bump into the person, then apologise profusely. I figure if more people do that then they may get the message.
I really don’t mind if someone wants to walk into the traffic or cross a pedestrian crossing with their eyes attached to their screen rather than the oncoming cars — really, that’s your choice and if you want to get hit by a car then go for it, but try to be mindful of the pedestrians behind you and in front of you as you do it. Really, is what you’re reading so important that you have to do it right now, while you’re walking? I’ve looked over the shoulders of some offenders and from what I’ve seen it really isn’t, unless you think scrolling through Instagram is so vital that you just can’t leave it until later. If it is that important — if you really need to send that text now — then consider standing to the side of the stairs or footpath and stopping for a moment to send your message. Then start walking again, and walk with purpose.
Or maybe our cities should start designating lanes on footpaths for texters in the same way that we have cycle lanes and split lanes for people walking in opposite directions. It’s not as mad as it sounds. The Wall Street Journal reported in September 2014 that the Chinese city of Chongqing unveiled a lane for people who want to walk as they use their mobile phones. “Cellphones; walk in this lane at your own risk” is printed in the lane in white lettering. The adjoining lane reads “No cellphones”. Then there’s the town of Augsburg in southern Germany which, early this year, installed traffic signals in the ground at two tram crossings after a teenage girl died after walking in front of a tram while looking at her phone and listening to music on her headphones.
This is an edited extract from The A to Z of Modern Manners by David Meagher, out on Monday (Vintage, $24.99).