This is a perfect example of why we need to apply what we know about social norming to social media panics. And in a rare show of levelheadedness from the news media, Global News in Canada helps us get there. "The Game of 72 – a viral prank urging kids to disappear for 72 hours – is the latest in a series of risky pranks being done by kids and then shared to social media. But the prank, and … [Read more...] about ‘Game of 72’: Let’s apply a little ‘social norming’
social norms
‘Disconnected’: Crucial book for closing the ‘ethics gap’ online
I don't know about the millions of people in developing countries going online for the first time with mobile phones but, here in the developed world, something strange happened when we moved onto the Web nearly 20 years ago. It's as if we checked our thousands of years of social-norms and ethics development at the door of cyberspace. Somehow we saw that space as "technology" and got stuck there – … [Read more...] about ‘Disconnected’: Crucial book for closing the ‘ethics gap’ online
An app for teens that promotes (& gets) positivity
Last spring I asked, "Will safety ever be baked in to social apps?" Well, it's actually starting to be. Let is a perfect example. A social app (mostly on Apple's iOS phones) with an overwhelmingly teen-aged user base that launched last March, its L.A.- and Marseilles-based creators seem to have grown a digital community in which teens and young adults, mostly girls, feel safe and help each other … [Read more...] about An app for teens that promotes (& gets) positivity
Zooming in on social norms
This is a sidebar to my earlier post about social norms as one of the solutions to social cruelty online – in case readers would like a little more definition. Social norms are practically super powers. As I mentioned in my main post, this doesn't occur to us much because, well, these are norms, after all – part of the wallpaper, socially speaking. They're everyday behavior based on intangibles … [Read more...] about Zooming in on social norms
The anti-EDIs social norm: A counterargument
They're more like DEDIs (digitally enabled displays of insensitivity) than EDIs (electronic displays of insensitivity), because the behavior is human not electronic. But that's beside the point. This NPR commentary suggests that EDIs are becoming a social norm. It cites an unscientific survey of 2,000 newsletter subscribers as finding that this insensitive behavior – people checking their phones … [Read more...] about The anti-EDIs social norm: A counterargument