In the book, “The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It” the author Jonathan Zittrain talks about an experiment done in the city of Drachten, Deutschland. The experiment called, “unsafe is safety” require the city to remove all traffic signs, parking meters, and parking spaces; the only rules left were: drivers should yield to the cars to the right, and no car should park where it blocked another car. Ironically, the test had successful results: drivers were indeed driving in a safety way. The author quotes traffic expert Hans Monderman, “The many rules strip us of the most important thing: the ability to be considerate. We’re losing our capacity for socially responsible behavior. The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people’s sense of personal responsibility dwindles.”
After reading about this experiment I thought about the rules, or more like the lack of rules, that apply to the internet; more specifically during the use in social media. Zittrain himself asks the question later on the book, “What are the technical tools and social structures that inspire people to act humanly online?”
Most users of social media know how to say things in order to be understood in the way they want to be understood. Most users understand what can be said in a public matter against saying it through private messages. None of these rules were written on a handbook whatsoever, they are more a combination of common sense and mutual agreement between users. As users learn how to use different social networks, they learn how each of them work and how to use the, correctly, including following their “unwritten rules.” A clear example is the difference between Facebook and twitter. Facebook is to stay connected with your friends. Twitter is a micro-blogging site. Of course both sites offer you the opportunity to stay connected with people you knew and meet knew people. Both sites offer you the opportunity to tell the world what are you doing, why are you doing it, your current thoughts, what you wish to do, your opinions, and basically anything about your life you wish. Yet it is annoying to see people who post all their tweets on their Facebook status. First, probably because if there is a hash tag included is useless in Facebook. The purpose of the hash tag is for your tweet to be seen by other users who are interested on the same subject. Part of twitter is able to see tweets from users you do not follow or know, that relate to something you want to learn more or just want to read. On Facebook, you basically find other people through friends or name, not by interests. Second, is common to make several tweets along the day; several Facebook status updates a day seem to be somewhat intense. Another big difference is how to use each social network to communicate with your friends. Is more common to use Facebook to have some sort of conversation with a friend, on twitter is more like a few replies about each other’s opinion in some subject, but not a detail conversation. Definitely users that understand both social networking sites, know that there are certain things that can be either a tweet or Facebook status updates, but not both.
No matter what are the differences between any social networking sites, so far it seems that not having written rules works. For some reason people are aware that they need to respect each other, (of course there are always exceptions), whether they know each other or not, in order for social media to work. Social networks provide users with an open forum to discuss anything: from a simple what to do for the day to the heaviest political debate going on. Whatever the discussion is about, users know that if it becomes a back-and-forth of insulting each other is not going to lead anywhere. So the question is why, it seems people can be more civilized online than in person? Perhaps because saying something in written word instead of spoken gives people a bit more time to calm themselves and rationalize what they say. Perhaps the space between each other makes us act humanly because it provides a space for respect. Perhaps as mentioned above in the blog, part of understanding in detail the purpose of each networking site, shows users that this sites provides them with the freedom to say what they want. Of course, there has always been freedom of speech, right? The difference is that users know that whatever is said online will be staying there indefinitely, very likely forever. Knowing that there will always be proof of what you said once upon a time, makes us more cautious and we try to be more educated about whatever we said. Or perhaps is the fact that everyone feels social media gives us the right to say what we want without being judge, therefore people think twice before judging twice. There is no concrete answer to what Zittrain asks, but just like the traffic signs experiment shows, “unwritten rules” makes us aware that at the end of the day we respect each other’s as humans and not as part of a justice system; I know it sounds a bit idealistic, but social media will continues to emerge as long as it gives people the comfort of being able to raise their voice without fear of judgment.
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