There are some huge advantages of travelling via driving a car – speed and convenience are just a couple. But there are also some extra risks – whilst you are unlikely to hurt anyone if you accidentally walk into someone walking the other way – if you are driving a car the damage you can do to others and yourself is potentially pretty significant.

Communicating with friends on fbook is a bit like driving a car. There are lots of advantages compared to talking face to face, but there are also some extra risks. We can – either completely accidentally or “kind of, sort of, a bit on purpose”  – really hurt people and ourselves when we use fbook. I believe social conflict or discomfort can happen more frequently, easily and severely on fbook than face to face for reasons of a) the lowering of inhibition we have when behind a screen, b) the ease of use, c) the amount of fbook use, d) the potential for public humiliation, e) potential for more permanent records kept, e) the potential for linking to visual information, and information from other sites, f) the potential for repeated exposure to disturbing or hurtful material and f) the difficulty in “escaping” fbook.

You might feel like I’m possibly overstating the case here. What can go wrong with writing a few comments on a website? Before you answer that, just consider the following ideas.

Alicia (not her real name, and details have been changed) came to see me a few months ago. She told me about her journey over the last 12 months. She was in Year 11 at a South Australian school and had two best friends from year 8, Susie and Melissa. She had been feeling pretty down because she knew Susie and Melissa were becoming closer and she was gradually being left out of conversations and get togethers. Susie and Melissa were also becoming more friendly with another big group of people and Alicia was left out of this too. One weekend, Susie and Melissa were invited to a gathering and Alicia wasn’t. They went along and someone took a photo of the two of them which ended up on fbook. Alicia posted a comment under the photo which went something along the lines of “looks like a pretty boring night!”. Susie correctly interpreted this as her just being jealous but couldn’t resist adding her comment underneath which was “lucky you didn’t come then, and btw it was heaps of fun and all the most fun people were there anyway”. A short, simple comment. No swearing, no obvious abuse. 

But what Susie didn’t know was the impact it was to have on Alicia. What she didn’t know was that Alicia was feeling pretty hopeless about her life in general. Her Mum was sick, her Dad was angry with her most of the time. She was worried about her school work and didn’t think she was going to get into the course she had dreamt about doing her whole life. Another friend of hers from outside school had moved interstate and she was really lonely. Susie and Melissa gave her the only moments of relief and happiness she had in her whole life, and at that point, reading that post, she honestly believed she had lost them. What was left? In her pain, Alicia hurt herself pretty badly that night and ended up in hospital for several weeks. She couldn’t face going back to school after she was discharged (believing that she would be humiliated) and so she dropped out of school. Her family were devastated and the consequences for Alicia, her Mum and Dad are still ongoing even today.

Was all of this Susie’s fault? Absolutely not.  But undeniably, her comment was one of the factors which contributed  to  the mess that followed. 

Much of the time when we accidentally embarrass, hurt or reject someone on fbook, it seems that nothing much happens. Even when we are annoyed and deliberately set out to niggle or hurt someone, often everything goes on as usual and no major dire consequences seem to occur. But some of the time, there is an impact and consequences, and some of the time these penalties are huge.  It’s really hard to know in advance what will cause a problem and what won’t. 

I should say by the way, that the consequences of being careless in how we communicate and post on fbook aren’t always experienced just by others. For example, take the case of Susie.  I happen to know that when stories got around about what had happened to Alicia, a whole lot of people decided that Susie was the villain in this story. She was rejected by many of her friends and suffered as well.

The consequences of rash posts on fbook aren’t just psychological. Recently I read a brochure on “cyber-crime” published by the South Australian Police. I have reproduced part of it below.

Examples of Cyber-crime

As you can see, there are a range of psychological and legal implications of hurting and embarrassing people on fbook. Being aware of what these implications might be is a good way for us to be a bit more cautious about what we say, how we say it, what we post and how we communicate with people using fbook. It is sometimes helpful to remember when we communicate via fbook we are “behind the wheel” so to speak of a powerful technology which has potential to harm, and whilst that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use it, it does mean taking some extra precautions.

What exactly might we do differently? 

TEN PRACTICAL IDEAS TO AVOID CAUSING HURT AND EMBARRASSMENT ON FBOOK

 

1.        If you are angry, annoyed or frustrated with someone, stay away from fbook. When we feel angry, the part of our brain which makes decisions based on facts, reason and values is under-active. All the activity in our brain is happening in the part which creates emotions. While our brain is operating like this, it’s just too easy to make a comment or post that you might regret later. So remember the rule of thumb: if you feel p-eed off, log off.

2.        If you have something sensitive to say, think carefully about whether you can do it face to face. I know it is often a lot easier to say things to people when they are not standing right in front of us, but there are also a lot of risks to it as well. Fbook chat is great for casual conversations, simple questions or humour, but it is often not good for conversations about things that are hard to hear or say.

3.       If you have any doubt about whether to post a picture, comment, status update or anything – the best rule to remember is DELAY DELAY DELAY. Wait until after tea, or after the next bit of your homework, or until the end of the night, or until the next morning, or until the weekend.  When you have doubts about whether it is a good idea to say something, giving yourself extra time is almost always better than doing it straight away. By telling yourself “wait” rather than “never”, it also means you are more likely to be able to follow through with your advice, because it is easier to do. Once you have delayed, it might be that you decide “never” without any hesitation.

4.       Before you update a status, post a picture, put a comment on someone’s site – imagine these words and images being put on the front page of your school newsletter.   Double check whether you would be okay with this. Because essentially, this is what you are doing. You are making information public to a whole lot of people.

5.       Regularly go through your list of “friends”. Think back over the last few things you posted and keep them in mind as you read through your friend list. Check whether you are happy with every single one of those friends seeing and knowing what you have posted.

6.       Check your privacy settings. Make sure you are happy with who can see what you say and post, who your friends are and so on. Once you have checked them, don’t entirely forget about what you post. It only takes one “friend” to copy and paste a photo of you, or a comment you have made onto another site or setting – and then our privacy settings don’t mean anything anyway.

7.       Consider keeping fbook to just really close friends. You can always add people again later if it’s important to contact them.

8.       Use emoticons. It helps give some context to what is going on.

9.       Send extra messages or use other forms of communication to clear up any tricky or sensitive messages. Use text, phone calls, emails and face to face communication to add information and context to any difficult messages.

10.   If you think there is a risk someone might have been upset by something you have said, clear it up as soon as possible and apologise fast.   Consider using phrases like: “hope you’re okay that I didn’t have time to talk tonight, was stuck with homework!”, “btw, sorry if that photo wasn’t a favourite of yours, let me know if you want me to take it off”, “hey, didn’t mean to sound rude last night, sorry if I was over the top”. Much of the time, an (even really casual) apology is the best way to help others and yourself feel better. Sometimes, it is even worth apologising even if you are not 100% sure that you are in the wrong. I think, at times, it is better to care for others, keep friends and help hurting people by apologising rather than sticking to the principles of who was “most/first in the wrong”.

Hope these ideas get you thinking about how you want to use fbook. Feel free to email me any questions or comments.

Good luck

Kirrilie

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