Netiquette IQ - Chats - My First Blog On This Topic

Internet chat is prolific. And  when I saw the article below, it occurred to me that I had not not ever written specifically about chat Netiquette. Many principles of email Netiquette about to chat and should be used as much as is practical.

Netiquette: Stuck Playing Musical Chats?

January 9, 2014 http://socialsolutionscollective.com/netiquette-musical-chats/

You’re busy too, right? Considering that the average adult attention span is seven seconds, and, because so many of us have subscribed to a “social” lifestyle, we have voluntarily chosen to split our time to do, sometimes, way too many things thus making us … busy!

Consider this:

Total minutes people spend on Facebook every month: 700 billion

Total hours spent on YouTube per month: 2.9 billion

Average number of tweets per day: 190 million

We are directly attributing to the numbers above, sometimes intentionally and sometimes by pure happenstance.

I’ll be honest. On any given day, I could potentially have 6 different chat conversations going at once, via numerous social networking service providers, along with a multitude of different tasks that I’m trying to complete at the same time. I’m doing this in an attempt to - concurrently operate by one central processing unit of two or more processes – simply put, multitasking. What ends up happening in one of the many chat conversations is this:

Jacqueline: “Hey Kim! How are you?”

Kim: “It’s good to hear from you Jacqueline. I’m great. Just working, enjoying the new addition to the family and trying to keep up with the changing practices at the office. How are you?”

Jacqueline: “It’s great over here..lots of new stuff going on with the organization, travel, balance and of course teaching. So, how are you?”

Kim: (blank stare at the screen)

Without even thinking about it, we allow social media to take over our desktops, invade our personal space and force us into bad habits and manners. All because we are simply trying to do too much. In the social media sphere, it’s such an easy trap to fall into. You’ll look up and you are engaged in several different conversations or tasks that are not the focus or priority of your day. It’s really not fair or pleasant for you to engage in a half focused conversation. To avoid getting the infamous “screen blank stare”, try some of these things:

§  Be careful about leaving your chat rooms open or set to be automatically logged into when you log onto a site. Try logging in manually, thus giving you control over when you want conversations to happen and to avoid being bombarded with chatter that you may not be prepared for.

§  Pick a certain time of day that you will chat or engage in online conversations.

§  Be honest with someone who might engage you at a bad time. “I just quickly logged on for a second to complete something. Can I link up with you later today or tomorrow to catch up?”

I get it. We are increasingly tasked with doing more, with less time to get it done.  But, the more and more that we take on more than we can handle and avoid responsibly managing our interactions with one another, the more counterproductive we are in building stronger relationships and creating meaningful and fully present encounters with one another. In 2014, let’s all commit to being more “present” in our personal and professional relationships. That’s what I call good netiquette.

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In addition to this blog, I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, "Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:

 www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki

 If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newsletter via paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ Rider University and  PSG of Mercer County New Jersey.
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