About a month ago — just as the Wired Campus was heading off on its winter break — David Pogue of The New York Times wrote an interesting blog post bemoaning the incivility that seems to spring, almost inevitably, from online communications. “What’s really stunning is how hostile ordinary people are to each other online these days,” he wrote, noting that threads on Web forums have an uncanny knack for disintegrating into sniping and ad hominem attacks. “The real shame…is that the kneejerk ‘everyone else is an idiot’ tenor is poisoning the potential the Internet once had.”
Mr. Pogue offered several possible explanations for all the online acrimony, including the liberating effect of anonymity, the “open toxicity” of the political climate, and the possibility that codes of social etiquette are simply eroding. It’s worth revisiting these theories in light of The Chronicle‘s recent story on two Drake University law professors, who are trying to convince students that online interactions, like face-to-face conversations, are well-served by a sense of civility and a touch of formality.
Teaching the finer points of Web etiquette seems like a laudable goal, and the Drake professors can give students a compelling reason to pay attention: Future jobs may hang in the balance. But when there’s no professional (or scholastic) incentive for politeness, can e-mail conversations and Web-forum threads be expected to stay free of what Mr. Pogue would consider unproductive bickering? Can “good Web behavior” (whatever the term implies) be taught, or are discussion-board catfights just a side effect of simple human nature? —Brock Read
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