Netiquette For The Elderly...

My grandparents never adapted to the technologies of the new millennium. Even my uncle is not really tech-savvy and doesn’t have any social media presence. But I do. The whole technological revolution happened in front of my eyes. The social media scene came into existence during my teens and it became an integral part of my lifestyle pretty quickly. Be it Yahoo Chatrooms, Orkut, hi5, or Facebook, at some point or the other I have used them all. Online messaging apps became a big thing a couple of years ago and now, people in organizations are using WhatsApp for conversations which were earlier meant only for company email. It is definitely a huge revolution and the merits of online social media are unlimited but it is also being misused a lot. That is, but natural and doesn’t bother me much. Systems are being put in place to check that misuse.

What actually bothers me is the lack of Netiquette among people, especially a few elderly people who have taken to social media recently. And that is what this article is all about. I am not going to drop any names here but I really wish I could. But that won’t be correct Netiquette (Internet Etiquette, for those who were wondering). 

There is this one gentleman among my Facebook friends who is a family acquaintance. In person, he is an average oldster from my hometown who despite his military background is as crass and ignorant as anyone else from his neighborhood. But that is his problem, or was his problem, until he took to Facebook and started badgering everyone he knew with over-personal advice in the form of comments on their photos and posts. At first, I thought he was doing that because he didn’t understand how public comments worked. But soon, I realized that it was more. His invasion of other people’s privacy was habitual. Because he started pulling the same stunt on others too.

Stunts like advising people to reconnect with estranged relatives, speaking ill of people to others in public comments, and stepping over the boundaries of normal social conventions. He recently posted the name and personal phone number of a lady in a comment on a post on someone else’s profile. Stuff like that is completely unforgivable. I was decent enough to reprimand him by email and frankly, I was expecting him to understand that what he was doing was wrong, but he just continued to do it with others. 

People like that need a lesson in Netiquette. Facebook has been trying to safeguard people’s privacy by introducing so many privacy filters and a few people like this mess that all up. I can understand some guy with a fake profile messaging obscenities to a girl. I do not condone it but it can be ignored. Such people can be blocked and usually, messages sent by people who are not on your friend list don’t show up in your inbox, they go straight to the “Others” folder where you need to grant permission to such people to continue messaging you. But what do you do with people like this old man who is in everyone’s friend list and just doesn’t know how to behave on social media?

People like that need to stop being such jerks. But the fact is they won’t. They are nosy and intrusive in real life and they’ll keep being the same on social media too. It is up to the people on the receiving end to deal with it the way they see fit. I chose to write about it and create awareness. You can choose to block the guy if you want. It is that easy.

Another kind of netizen is worth mentioning in this article. There is this girl I know who keeps abusing people on her friend list who post “inappropriate” comments on her pictures. So I once inquired who these guys were. Turns out, she adds anyone who sends her a friend request. That is the height of stupidity. How can you add strangers to your friend list and expect them to behave like gentlemen? Maybe curate your list of online friends so that you are spared the online obscenities.

Women like this need to understand that accepting a stranger’s friend request is like winking back at a stranger. Nothing good can come out of it. This girl in question does it for attention. But I know some other women who are just ignorant. I recently read a post by this lady who was angrily chiding people for messaging her with obscene pictures and comments. She wrote that she accepted their friend requests because she thought of them as brothers. My advice to that lady: “Guys aren’t interested in making sisters and in most cases, they won’t be interested in being just friends with ladies they don’t know. So choose people wisely rather than whining about it on social media. You’re not the first person to experience this and you won’t be the last. There will always be jerks in this world. Get over it.”

I am not justifying the existence of such creeps who bother women online. I am just saying they can be prevented. Blocking such people and moving on is the best solution here because there will never be a dearth of bad people. It’s the good ones that are rare.

I may have committed a lot of internet faux pas when I was younger. But I have learned from my mistakes and moved on. I think if everybody did that, the internet would be a much more friendly space.