setting and respecting boundaries, and rules for everyone at all age levels, from kids to adults.
We think you should at least familiarize yourself with the concepts in the first three chapters because you need to know the concepts in Part 1 so that you can conquer digital etiquette in Part 2. If you deal with email often, you’ll want to focus on Part 3. (It not only talks about email etiquette but also fills you in on what you need to know so that you don’t run afoul of legal trouble in your email marketing campaigns.)
After that, we have a lot of information about virtual meetings, which were already popular before the COVID-19 pandemic propelled interest in that topic into the stratosphere. And let’s not forget mobile etiquette. (Part 5 talks about not only text messaging but also how to be polite when you’re talking on your phone.) If you want to focus on a specific area, the table of contents will guide you to where you want to go.
Now it’s time to get started reading about what etiquette is and how to use it in your online communication. Enjoy the book!
Part 1
Etiquette Guidelines
IN THIS PART …
See how etiquette has changed in the digital age
Know the online ramifications of online behavior
Recognize the importance of minding your manners
Chapter 1
Defining Etiquette in the Digital Age
IN THIS CHAPTER
It’s easy enough to define etiquette, isn’t it? Just be kind to one another.
That’s all, folks — thank for reading!
Of course, you know that’s not the whole story or else you wouldn’t be reading this book. It’s hard enough to know what etiquette is when you’re dealing with other people face-to-face. But now communications devices have added many more rules for communicating not only with video cameras, which are ubiquitous on computers and phones, but also in situations where you don't even see the other person (and you may have noticed that makes people seem less considerate, to put it mildly).
Before we can talk about how to apply etiquette to the digital age in which everyone now finds themselves, we need to review some definitions. Once we do that, I’ll discuss how you can apply etiquette in different situations, including social, small group, and business environments.
Coming Up with Some Definitions
Let’s start with the obvious question: What is digital etiquette, anyway?
You may also have heard digital etiquette referred to by the portmanteau netiquette — that scrunching together of the words Internet and etiquette. No matter which term you’ve heard, the same definition applies: You should follow these basic rules of behavior whenever you interact with others on the Internet or use electronic devices like smartphones. And by Internet, we mean all kinds of online communication, including email, forums, and social networking websites.
Netiquette
Let’s start a deeper dive by talking about the term netiquette, which may be the most familiar to you. This term predates the modern Internet by quite a few years — 1983, specifically. This was the era when bulletin board systems, or BBSs, were the primary means of communicating online.
The acronym BBS doesn’t ring a bell, huh? Maybe the national services CompuServe, The Source, and America Online can help you (not so fondly) remember the days when you had to save up for a faster modem — such as 56Kbps or even (gasp!) ISDN.
The two prominent dictionaries have slightly different definitions of netiquette, but it’s useful to keep both in mind:
The Oxford English Dictionary defines netiquette as “the correct or acceptable way of communicating on the Internet.”
Merriam-Webster (http://m-w.com) defines netiquette as “etiquette governing communication on the Internet.”
Etiquette versus online ethics
In trying to wrap your mind around the notion of etiquette, you need to be able to distinguish between ethics and etiquette. You may have heard both terms used interchangeably when people talk about online behavior. If you think they’re the same, lose that thought like you lose the TV remote.
The term etiquette is the code, at times unspoken, that indicates the polite way to behave in a society. Ethics is a set of moral principles that tells you what’s good and what’s bad. In a movie, you may have seen a character who you know is a bad guy but who acts politely toward everyone in the film; the perfect manners don’t fool you, because you know that the bad guy is still a villain who is naturally immoral.
Some behaviors also fall under the definition of bad ethics, which may help explain why people confuse the terms. For example, someone who lies and cheats to get what they want, no matter whether it happens in person or online, displays behavior that belies a deeper problem — we’re talking about someone who cannot think ethically.
https://pediaa.com/difference-between-ethics-and-etiquette.
Seeing Which Situations Call for Etiquette
Certain rules of etiquette apply all the time, such as sneezing into your arm or elbow. (That’s polite behavior no matter whether you’re in a pandemic.) Other rules apply to specific situations, such as chatting with others in an online meeting.
