Poor Manners the Analog Disconnect

Your Honor May I Be Heard
Poor Manners the Analog Disconnect
By RANDELL A. MONACO
Published: December 3, 2010

In a recent social media exchange, a new acquaintance pointed out a shared observation that the attention span of people seems the equivalent of a gnat these days. She went on to say that, “I have no idea how they put up with my statuses/comments.” I thought about this for awhile, were her social media experiences changing her social behavior, probably not but there was concern nevertheless. At first, I reasoned that this was a new phenomenon born of the 140 character limitation style of Twitter quips which might have carried on to the Facebook masses. I have since however, dismissed this theory not to be the case since few of these people are active on Twitter.

Actually, what I’ve observed is something different. A genuine change in social etiquette is my best description of what I’ve experienced. Interestingly, what I’ve actually observed in my relatively short social media existence is something that seems a more significant societal trend.
To explain, people who I’ve known well before social media became pervasive and who I knew did not practice these poor social traits I’m about to describe, seem oblivious to their behavior. It’s sort of a bantering slang canned into five to seven word slams and one up’s that disregard the already invested effort to discuss, understand or explain. You might call this trend a talk to the hand I don’t want to hear it type of behavior. Maybe this level of exchange is just a continuation of our globalized socialization, I’m not sure.

Worse, the behaviors I’m talking about even includes criticizing the gracious effort and expenditure of time take to respond or share with another whose agreed to a social exchange or “friendship.” Addressing more than one subject in a response to someone’s inquiry even seems too much in these social spaces. This trend has a cavalier acceptance of ignoring whatever you don’t want to hear regardless of whether it was by request. Something like, “don’t make me read just tell me the answer. I don’t want to hear the rest.”

Reading takes too much effort these days. In my perception of this trend, people want you to validate them in a word or two. It is as if their inquiry wasn’t ever made unless your response wasn’t concise enough for the validation sought. In short, it’s conduct that wouldn’t occur in person but has become tolerated, if not accepted, in the social spaces of the virtual world as if there was no connection to the analog world.

Recently, I had a “Facebook friend” tell me to “stop the political spamming and get a girl friend” as if they had been forced to listen to my ideas and thoughts or forced to read them. This cultural erosion of civility evidently has bestowed an editorial badge that grants censorship authority in the social spaces.

Different than the four letter name calling and loud personal attack all of us have witnessed during our lives, the evolving lack of decorum seems to be oblivious to the analog definition of rude. It is a level of insincerity, self centered; self absorbed disrespect newly incubated in the social media spaces. The perception of disconnect and relative absence of real accountability might explain this trend. It’s kind of like telling someone off over the phone.
The troubling concern in all this is that usually someone has already given their time and made the effort to socially share their idea or respond to a discussion thread.

Let’s be realistic, it is not always possible to read everything but should that justify the disrespect? Before Social Media did these people just throw away personal letters from their friends after asking for an opinion? Did they actually throw away most of their letters and send off criticisms when they didn’t get the answer or validation they wanted in a sentence?
Another aspect of this social phenomenon is the absence of meaningful exchange and consideration given to the ideas of another. Partisan slams, labels and personal attacks have replaced the effort required by dialogue.

There’s a perpetual circulation of partisan blame and never ending search to validate that has become the norm in social media dialogue. I call this trend, “talk to the hand.” In my brief social media existence an exchange with someone that might ask a question to better understand or contribute to understanding of the subject seems less frequent as time passes. Another rarity is an exchange where someone doesn’t have an opinion and actually says, “I don’t know.” Conclusion, opinions abound these days as if they were required.

One and two word responses such as “irrelevant” and “off point” regardless of fact to avoid further engaged effort aren’t the same behaviors that these people practiced in the analog world after someone show interest in their opinion. But most unfortunate is that these behaviors and social rudeness now seems to come from many people who once seem to have more inquisitive minds, better manners and understood the decorum of social exchange.
Maybe there is some explanation in that everyone does not have the same level of proficiency to type or use the keyboard as they do to write on paper. But I’m not going to look for more defenses to this unfortunate trend. These are just observations, I hope I’m wrong.