Social-networking manners

A Telegraph columnist understandably asks, basically: What's wrong with this picture - a stuffy old publisher "identified in the popular mind with ... the appropriate usage of pudding forks and cheese knives" writing rules for polite social networking? But somebody at Debrett's must have a profile in MySpace, Bebo, or Facebook. They're pretty good rules, actually - except maybe for the one that says you're supposed to always use a phone or card to wish a friend happy birthday, not a comment on his/her wall. However, Washington Post writer Kim Hart, blogged this question: "When it comes to maintaining relationships, do social networks let us 'cheat' a little too much?" She was writing about a just-released survey by the Consumer Internet Barometer finding that "common pet peeves among social-networking regulars include 'lack of manners'." Debrett's five "golden rules" are at the bottom of this other Telegraph report on the subject. It'd be very interesting to ask a teenage focus group what's missing. And the Telegraph columnist's right, of course, that "codes of behaviour emerge from the users [of social sites], and are constantly modified by them." It's just that some older users don't always want to wait that long.

Social graces on the social Web

It's always fun to get a snapshot of where we (people in general) are in developing etiquette or, as Macworld put it, "social graces" on the social Web. And that's all there is, really, in this little article, a little snapshot of where the thinking is. The best reminder in it, for teens (or anyone) concerned about being seen as mean or snobby when they're just protecting their own interests or privacy in Facebook, is that it's ok to delete someone from their friends list - Facebook doesn't make an announcement or anything. Also, there's a good answer to the question, "What do you do if you get an unwanted invitation?" "I say ignore invitations without shame. Some people send them to everyone they have the slightest connection to - in that case, they probably won’t even notice your silent rejection."