— Updated: 11:28 am –>
Our New Etiquette Column: Internet Protocol
By Jenna WorthamThe Internet has given rise to many wonderful things (read: that brilliant Kanye West meme) but for all its transformative potential, it has also given us social conundrums that would drive Emily Post to drink.
To that end, this column. Its primary purpose is to help you gracefully navigate the murky waters of a hyper-connected world. Mom won’t stop tagging embarrassing family photos of you on Facebook? Think you’re being stalked on the Web by a former best friend? Blast your entire address book with a very private e-mail message? I’ll try to help sort it all out. E-mail me or Tweet them to me.
I love a good midday dish session over IM as much as the next person. But there are a couple of people on my buddy list who just keep sending me messages, even after I tell them I should be getting back to work. I don’t want to be rude, but I can’t chit-chat the day away — how do I graciously extricate myself from an IM chat that’s gone on way too long? — Inundated with IMs
Dear Inundated,
In most situations, three characters should do the trick: G2G. In Internet shorthand, it means “got to go,” and is universally understood to mean that whatever the reason — your boss just walked over, the baby is crying, “Mad Men” just came on — the conversation has come to non-negotiable stop.But be forewarned, tossing out those three letters can be a little jarring for your instant messaging partner and even come off as rude. To soften the blow, include an emoticon (a smiley face works just fine) or insert buffer text. (Faking immediacy is one strategy: Pretend something’s just come to your attention with a “Hold on a sec.” Then wait five seconds and drop a “Sorry, gotta run.”)
In addition, be prepared with an exit strategy. For example, try something along the lines of “I’m about to head to a meeting but I wanted to ask you a few questions.” When you’re ready to wrap up, a simple “Oh hey, I have to go that meeting now. Thanks for the info” should suffice. Alternatively, you could always just stop hitting the reply button. One nice thing about the Internet is that our attention spans have shrunk to minuscule proportions — no one is going to be upset if you just … trail … off.
Welcome to the 21st Century, Emily Post! The NYTimes has launched an internet protocol column for all of us who wonder how to deal with certain behavior or situations online. I think this could be very good not only for those savvy users who encounter the entire range of weird, obnoxious or otherwise questionable internet behavior down to those who find the internet a brave new world and just have no idea where to begin. Are there any situations you think should be addressed in a column like this?
