There’s been no shortage of commentary about the threat and opportunity posed to traditional media, and the PR profession for that matter, by social media (reference too, my post of yesterday). But, while these new tools of mass communication and interaction are truly disruptive, have we developed the maturity to use them wisely?

Chris Brogan today offered some key etiquette points to keep in mind with social media, whether it be basic e-mail use or the more advanced features of Facebook. It’s by no means an exhaustive list.

There mere fact that Chris finds it necessary to start off his list with the email etiquette, of all things, demonstrates the utter thoughtlessness many of us demonstrate with the casual click of that Send button. Email is the original social media tool (no doubt, others will disagree about that). It’s been widely available to the masses for more than a decade, and yet we still have to be reminded about how to use it judiciously?

It’s the utter convenience of these things that I believe is the problem. These tools are so ubiquitous and available it’s easy to focus on employing them as the ready means to a goal without giving sufficient thought to the impact on those with whom we’re trying to communicate, or those around us we shouldn’t disturb.

Mobile phones are the ultimate example of this. Movie theatres still find it necessary to preface the feature presentation with that annoying “Please, don’t add your own soundtrack” PSA to ensure ringtones have been muted. And that’s a casual social setting. I’d estimate that 90 per cent of the time when I am attending some kind of business function that includes a presentation, at least one person in that audience will receive a call with their ringtone at full volume to interrupt the speaker. Rather than mute the volume, quite often they’ll leap up and sprint from the room with the phone still ringing.

The important thing to remember in this age of instant communication — all communication doesn’t have to happen instantly, people don’t have to respond to you within minutes and the world really doesn’t need to know what you had for breakfast or share in that snazzy new Facebook app you’ve found.

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