Pretend for a minute the same conversation were happening in real life. And let's say that present at this conversation was the pregnant mother, her rude friend, a former co-worker, a college professor, three random people she went to high school with, and a friend of her uncle's. This more or less mimics a sampling of an actual "friend" group. No one would ever say something like that in front of all those people!!! But, facebook makes those "phantom" people somehow forgettable, which appears to facilitate inconsiderate behavior.
To see if I was the only one with this theory, I conducted my own "unofficial" survey by asking people I know if they think facebook is making us ruder. These were the responses I got:
"Yes."
"Probably."
"For sure."
"Could you move away from the TV? I'm trying to watch the news."
As you can see, clear scientific evidence that facebook is indeed chipping away at our manners. But, what can be done about this? I'm not a scientist, but I think that the internet is not going away. Also, social networking sites seem to be increasing (as opposed to decreasing). How can we prevent against this type of behavior?
Ummm.... we probably can't, right? Just the same way we can't stop loud public cell phone conversations, texting during movies, or people becoming addicted to Angry Birds. But, we can strive to look at our own behavior and remember that just as one should aim to think before one speaks, one should still think before one hits "enter."
Photo provided by Mike Owsianny. www.owsiannyphotography.com
