Читать книгу Essentials of Sociology - George Ritzer - Страница 124

Social media websites are developing faster than the norms that can help guide and regulate the behavior of their users (McLaughlin and Vitak 2011). Online etiquette, or netiquette, tends to be implicit—there are few if any formal rules on how to use Snapchat or Instagram. Norms for these sites often emerge when users directly sanction the behavior of each other and content they feel is inappropriate. They may flag a sexually explicit photograph or hide a person from their Facebook feed who posts too many status updates. Our understanding and practice of online norms typically reflect the habits of our close friends, whom we are more likely than acquaintances to confront with norm violations. For example, if our friends are discreet about the photos they post of us, then we will likely reproduce this norm of being considerate when we post photos that include them (McLaughlin and Vitak 2011). Reciprocity, or sharing, is one of the most important norms currently guiding online behavior. Adherence to these norms allows us to build trust and gain access to information.

Netiquette can be complicated, considering the diversity of our online audience—what might be appropriate for our close friends to read or see might not be acceptable to our teachers or bosses. Furthermore, some sites might encourage people to behave in ways online that might not be acceptable in the real world. Snapchat can automatically delete photos, which might encourage users to post inappropriate or unflattering pictures of themselves or their friends. The legality of such practices has become an issue with teenagers when they send sexual images of themselves to each other. In some states this is considered to be the distribution of child pornography. In addition, cyberbullying occurs on a variety of social media sites, such as Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, prompting some people to question whether these digital means of communication are making cruelty more normative. ●