If something like a Social Style Guide for Facebook exists – I haven’t seen it. It would serve some of my Friends, some of whom will be deprived from my friendship in the shortest possible future imaginable. I would have thought that some of the most basic forms of social etiquette also applied to the way we interact online.

Obviously, it’s not that clear…

I will be the first one to admit that my social network conduct may not always been top-notch either. As you remember, as recent as last week I was tarred and feathered as a spammer by one of my Facebook ‘Friends’ who clearly objected to receiving a link-carrying message from me.

The Facebook Team berated me previously for sending too many Friend Requests in one go, also accusing me of either being an automated ‘thing’ that spat out requests at random, or someone who was just looking to bump-up his Friend List by sending invites to any soul who happen to pass by at the time.

So much for being organised and working from list to do exactly what Facebook didn’t want me to do: sending too many invites in a too short space of time.

In Facebook’s world being too efficient can make one look suspicious.

In absence of a definitive Mappa Mundi on Online Social Behaviour which, if it existed, would clearly spell-out how we are to interact in cyberspace, social networking is pretty much all about trial and error. Trying to get a handle on how things work technically is one thing; trying to not traumatise others along the way through our acts and behaviours is quite another.
I am pretty sure we’ve all been there at some point; its part and parcel of growing up in an online world.

Converse to that ever-significant group of Friends, Followers and Connection who are still driving their newly acquired Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts with ‘L’ plates on their foreheads a battalion of people seem to exist who have put common social sense on ice completely.

Three of last month’s examples of that:

• One of my Facebook Friends – whom I trust not to tell bogus stories – told me that she was raked over the coals by another ‘Friend’ who accused her of ‘stealing’ her publishing style. Specifically, the gripe was about my friend’s use of a specific phrase that, according the plaintiff, ‘belonged to her’ and was not to be used any further by my friend. Setting aside the ludicracy of claiming that a normal and commonly used part of any language can be ‘owned’ by anyone, the message wasn’t phrased as a request but as a direct order. Baffling as well as enlightening. I wonder who owns the word ‘d*ckhead’.
• Another Facebook Friend saw herself confronted by more than 76 ‘hi’s’, ‘hello’s’ and ‘heya’s’ in her inbox, all sent by one person over a three day period. Basic arithmetic helps us understand that this equated to approximately 25 messages sent per day, on average. To put this in context: my children usually give up asking for attention if they don’t get it after five or six attempts, and even that’s on the high side for they are quick learners. In this case, the sender is an adult, male, not bad-looking if you believe that his profile pic is, indeed, his, and enjoying the company of more than two-thousand other Facebook Friends. He either doesn’t understand that not responding to the first eight messages may mean ‘get lost’ or that he has a bit of growing-up to do.
• A third Facebook Friends was woken up at 3:00AM by a dude who thought it to be ‘pleasant’ to ask for a Facebook friendship connection by phone. Worse, the line wasn’t perfect so when my Friend deliberately disconnected in horror the caller made two more attempts thinking that technical issues were at play. Knowing this Friend in real life as a calm, even-keeled and collected person I was surprised to hear her quote the terminology she used to get rid of him. It certainly included words my mother never taught me.

I am sure there are some other horror stories floating around, some perhaps far worse than these three. That things like these truly seem to happen may cause for some light-hearted amusement later on but it raises concerns about the way we can and should regulate our acts and behaviours in online worlds.

Can – or should – our social behaviours online differ from those we observe in ‘real’ life?

Do social network channels such as Facebook and Twitter give us Carte Blanche for the way we can behave, since no real ‘style guide’ for online behaviours seem to exist.

Considering that the online worlds in which we move are largely self-regulating and ever-changing, should we expect behaviours to improve, erode or to stay the same?

I have my own thoughts on this obviously – but I’d love to hear yours.







Login with Facebook by pressing this button - then go to see what your Facebook Friends have to say about this blog in the Facebook - The Three Most Annoying Friend Habits forum.

Have phun!

-