Family Matters - By Jude Dobson

The other day I was interested to see a guide on internet use called Netiquette a guide to net manners. I wondered what need there would be for a Miss Manners on the effects of keyboard-tapping, but curiosity got the better of me and I took a look. Some of it seemed no-brainer stuff, eg, ''Remember the human at the other end of the Send key.''. But, then again, for a generation who knows only this form of communication, perhaps that needs to be spelled out. About three years back I wrote a story on electronic communication among tweenagers (yes, tweens not teens; tweens being between children and teens, about 10-12ish). It astounded me that the group of girls I spoke to did not take much ownership of what they wrote in a text message or email. It was easier for them than saying it face to face. One could be bolder than usual and, what's more, there was a perception that once said it could all be deleted. Topsy-turvy logic. Does this generation not realise the Forward and Print buttons mean that what you say could live on forever and go anywhere? Even end up on the front page of The New Zealand Herald? The fact that a machine is the gatekeeper means some people think what would usually be unacceptable to do is suddenly OK. There's many an adult, too, who's been torched by emailing their thoughts bravely to their boss, co-worker, or a complete stranger only to wish they'd left it, unsent, in the Draft file. The old-fashioned ''I'm hacked off at you,'' remark to someone's face at least was a non-festering oncer, and could even be denied at a later date if one was bold enough, but not so with today's electronic trail. Email is a fantastic tool, but using words on a computer screen, rather than having the extras of facial expressions, gestures and tone of voice, to communicate your meaning, can make for email disasters, with it being easy to misinterpret your correspondent's meaning or, in fact, getting the wrong message sent to you completely. When good emails go bad the result can be funny, embarrassing, ugly and cringe-making. I'm a sloppy typer who is time-poor; never learned keyboard skills at school, sadly (did Latin and physics). So I get Spell Check to comb through emails before sending. Trouble is, some words go through, since they are recognised as words, just not the ones intended, hence the meaning of a message can change completely. My clanger a few years back eventuated when I was in a ripping hurry waiting for some info. When it finally arrived I simply wanted to acknowledge I had it and get on with the business of assimilating this info into the project. So I quickly sent back ''got it''. Unfortunately, the space bar was tapped at the wrong moment and, although Spell Check said all was well, the message was received as ''go tit''. The recipient was not the sort of person who laughed about tits, and the silence was deafening. Unbelievably, I committed this particular gaffe on another occasion, but to someone who emailed back with thanks: ''You're a right one, too.''. But back to Miss Manners. Lots to digest, but I did like the bit about how people formerly made copies with carbon paper, and you could only make about five legible copies. Thus you thought good and hard about to whom you wanted to send those five copies. Now everyone from the chief exec to the cleaner can be cc'd on your message. Doing so without carefully considering who really needs to know is plain bad manners (and lazy, butt-covering behaviour, too, I'd pick). Think before you cc. Respect people's time and bandwidth! And no netiquette guide would be complete without mention of cursing. Asterisks were the preferred expletive, but with a wee clue, ''s****''. Everyone knows what you mean, but no one is offended, unlike my ''go tit'' recipient. So, sorry about that. I realise I made a right tit of myself.