Informal or Inappropriate: Why Netiquette Matters? Understanding Personal Messaging

Some from those who know me may call me a communication nazi and that may possibly be because I often keep correcting people, most especially students, about communication etiquette, keep warning them about pitfalls or in general keep reminding people about the need for etiquette in the way we communicate. And well, not surprisingly, this ‘oh so ‘propah’!’ (yes, the spelling is deliberate; I do know how to spell ‘proper’) attitude does not go down well with many.

I have heard many including my colleagues and even family members complaining – isn’t language for understanding, then why go on about syntax, grammar, spellings, vocabulary and etiquette? Or to put it in Marathi – ???????? ??? ?? ??????? (why split hair in the area of communication)? Well, I do agree that language is meant essentially for communicating things, but well there is a very thin line in being merely incorrect and miscommunicating. And, we all know the cost of miscommunication – it can vary from misunderstanding to a total breakdown in communication.

Yet, we find an extremely casual attitude towards communication, especially online communication. This is possibly because online, being faceless and instant, is confused with ‘casual’ or ‘everything goes’! The worst impact of this is felt due to the absence of ping/messaging etiquette; and with most work moving online it has become a chief stressor and source of miscommunication!

To take a simple example, many often presume that the other person may have their number saved; and this might not always be the case for a variety of reasons ranging from having lost the phone or not wanting to save the number. And yet, presuming that the other person has your number saved many drop messages, right from season’s greetings to important official messages, without mentioning who they are. This is presumptuous and may leave the receiver feeling many different things from flummoxed to frustrated. If they are birthday, season’s or in my case Teachers’ Day greetings, it becomes very awkward to ask the person to identify himself/herself; whereas if they are general messages, which require action or revert, it becomes irritating to first find out who the person is and then take the relevant action.

Let me give you a couple of simple examples to make my point clear. If one were to consider the first case, everybody who teaches has many students one has taught over the years and it is not always possible to save each one’s number, merely for a logistic issue; at such times when a greeting is sent without identifying oneself, it becomes awkward to ask for the identity and a conversation that may develop gets cut off with a stock reply. In the latter case, sometimes a person may have multiple roles and responsibilities, possibly with different deadlines and when one asks a question without identifying himself/herself, one may not know what to answer and precious time may be lost in going back and forth trying to figure out who the person is!

Recently, my colleague and I encountered this a lot when we had asked students of two different groups who had been given two different deadlines to send us their work on whatsapp. And guess what – hardly 15% of the students shared their name, class, specialisation and roll number. The delay and irritation experienced were more than justified. And as the saying goes bacche toh bacche baap re baap (the child is the father of man). No wonder we see the same absence of netiquette in professionals across organisations!

To this one may retort - rather than getting agitated or exchanging messages back and forth in an attempt to find out who has sent the message, why not find out who it is by looking at the dp/display picture? Needless to say, that’s another story. People have multiple things from quotes, scenery, their childhood pictures, awkward pictures, pictures of someone from the family or no pictures at all as display pics and these can’t help in identifying who they are. ?The casual (what I call awkward) pictures may help no doubt in this regard; but the impression it will create about you may go a long way in harming you. For, after all, pictures speak a thousand words and the unsaid has a far greater impact than what is said. And the same goes for status messages.

A bigger challenge in this regard is the habit of hitting ‘send’ even before proofreading. People always seem to be in a hurry to respond and this results in embarrassing faux pas, which could be best avoided. Sometimes they may go unnoticed, sometimes others may notice though one hasn’t; sometimes one may delete them for all (but even that leaves a poor impression if done regularly/often); but the damage is done – cases in point are Vinit getting autocorrected to vomit or Unnati to unnatural. Ironically, one may actually be saying something good about them; but imagine the impact!

What the pandemic has also done is led people to believe that their colleagues, friends, teachers, etc are available 24x7. At their beck and call. Guess what - that is really not the case; it is proven that productivity decreases, if a limit is not imposed on the working hours and style. So, messages during working hours only! Preferably between 9.30 am and 5.30 pm of the receiver’s time zone. Else it implies that you are being rude and taking the other for granted. Put the phone off or on silent, you may say; but that may always not be feasible for personal reasons – especially if one has aged/ailing relatives far away or one is expecting some other personal information that may be urgent

A variation of this taking for granted is not having the patience till the person reverts. One needs to understand that another person may be preoccupied and may require time to revert or may be working on what you have asked for. Pestering that person with repeated reminders or merely tagging the message and sending multiple question marks or tagging the message and saying Mam? does not help. It is better to wait for 24 hours for a revert and then send a reminder. Or at least care to observe the read indication of blue ticks or last seen to know whether the person has seen your message; and, if really urgent, know when to call instead.

No doubt, a challenge in this area can arise, when people keep off their blue ticks. While this is a useful facility for people, who are in high stress jobs or jobs that require secrecy like the police or the cyber crime cell, it is presumptuous of most to do so. If you have nothing to hide, then why switch off the read notifications aka the blue ticks. And though that does not give others the right to harangue you, somewhere you are asking for it!

Additionally, many engage in incomplete communication. People often send only ‘hi’ or ‘good morning’ and wait for the receiver to revert. Then when the receiver does so, they send their actual query or request. This results in a lot of back and forth and causes a great deal of delay, wasting the time of the other person. It is thus important to send the complete message at once and if that message contains a request or query, one also needs to check one’s device for the reply.

This however gets further complicated if one has multiple numbers. It is important to either check both or make a clear demarcation about which number one uses for which purpose. I for one have had an experience of people repeating queries because they have not checked that the query has been answered on the number from where it was asked. And the same query is repeated from the other number in a tone that makes the receiver feel guilty for no fault of theirs or second guess themselves, to say nothing of wasting the receiver’s time!

Another habit that people often have is using short forms. As a famous line goes ‘I do not understand what people do with the time they save by writing ‘k’ instead of ‘ok’ or ‘okay’. Using short forms like hbd for happy birthday shows that you hardly care, others like ttyl (talk to you later) may not be known across generations, some like lol may have changed across generations (from lots of love to laugh out loud) and those like wc for welcome may actually miscommunicate as wc is an abbreviation that is usually used for a water closet/toilet. ?

Finally, watch the emojis please. Which emoji you are sending and to whom really matters. Understand their meaning clearly, as they may change across cultures, ages and genders (to say nothing of hierarchy) and you could get into a lot of trouble by sending the wrong one. For example, we use the high five as namaste in India and I have seen corn being sent instead of a bouquet. Best avoided, as it would definitely lead to a lot of unwanted humour. Need one add that sending only emojis is a strict no-no.

As can be imagined these faux pas go way beyond ineffective communication, landing squarely into the domain of miscommunication. It is therefore in our best interest that we exercise caution and follow netiquette because it is not the medium but the person, we are dealing with, that determines the tone of our communication

Remember:

1. Always identify yourself – name, designation, company name

2. Keep an appropriate display picture ?

3. Always proofread your messages

4. Follow time etiquette

5. Give the person the space and time to revert

6. Keep your 'read' indicators on (as far as possible)

7. Send complete messages. Do not split the content across time and over multiple messages

8. Watch out in case you are using multiple numbers

9. Avoid random short forms

10. Watch the emojis ?

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(This is Part 1 of a series of 3 articles on netiquette. Watch this space for more!