Skip to footer

Digital age etiquette tips for Facebook faux pas and texting trip ups

Some survival tips for this digital age of social media and new technology.

|
Joanne Ciccarello/Staff
This is part of the cover story package on civil discourse in the Mar. 5 weekly edition of The Christian Science Monitor.
  • By Meredith Bennett-Smith Correspondent

Cellphone Usage

Do: Keep your phone on vibrate or silent mode in public or the workplace – no one needs to hear your cool, new "Star Wars" ring tone.

Don't: Keep your Bluetooth, oh so useful while driving, on and in your ear when not on the phone.

Social Networking Sites

Do: Use your "friending" power– and privacy settings – wisely. Be aware of who can see what. Your "sick day" will be less believable if co-workers know your status is "party's in Vegas!"

Don't: Post important information – deaths, weddings, pregnancies – instead of calling friends and family individually. This goes for breakups, too! Don't be that ex.

Text Messaging

Do: Make sure you're texting the right number. It's an easy mistake, with uncomfortable consequences.

Do: Respond to texts as you would in a face-to-face conversation; the same rules apply.

Don't: Send a text when engaged face to face with someone else. Feel free to excuse yourself if it's important – but we can totally tell you're texting behind that menu!

Don't: Use obnoxious, unclear abbreviations in work-related messages. Your co-workers are not cryptologists and will not be amused.

Sources: collegecandy.com, sherweb.com, emilypost.com, Robert Half

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Digital age etiquette tips for Facebook faux pas and texting trip ups
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2012/0304/Digital-age-etiquette-tips-for-Facebook-faux-pas-and-texting-trip-ups
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe