Instant Messaging Netiquette

Overview

Instant Messaging (IM) netiquette is defined as etiquette for users of IM and other forms of "electronic chat." Etiquette is defined as behaviors required by good breeding or prescribed by authority for social or official life. In other words, Netiquette is a set of rules for behaving properly online. When entering the new culture of cyberspace, you are liable to commit a few social mistakes. You might offend people without meaning to. There is something about cyberspace that makes it easy to forget that you are interacting with real human beings.

Guidelines for Improving Your IM Session

You should always have the golden rule in mind, "do unto others as you want others do unto you." Imagine how you feel if you were in the other person’s shoes. Needless to say you should stand up for yourself, but try not to hurt people’s feelings. When you communicate electronically, all you see is a computer screen. You do not have the opportunity to use nonverbal communication such as facial expression, gestures, and tone of voice to communicate your meaning. It is very easy to misinterpret your correspondent as well.

Guidelines for IM Messages Content

Computer networks bring people together who otherwise would have never met. The impersonality of online communication changes that meeting to something less personal than face to face. Humans exchanging electronic chat messages often act the way some people behind the wheel of a car do:

Most of them would never act that way at work or at home. But the interposition of the machine seems to make it acceptable. You should ask yourself, "would I say this to the person’s face?" If the answer is no; do not do it. When you communicate in cyberspace via IM remember your words are written, chances are they are stored somewhere and you have no control over them. There is a chance they could come back to haunt you. Therefore, IM users should be careful what they say.

Nonverbal Communication

IM does not contain physical or body cues. Emoticons, or smileys, when looked at sideways from a computer screen, look almost like stick drawings of human faces. There are many smileys that can be made with the simple characters of a keyboard, each of them conveys a slightly different meaning. Here is a small sample of Smiley’s:

A smiley can be used to let someone know you are joking, happy, or speaking "tongue-in check." And remember to use emoticons or smileys appropriately and sparingly.

Respect Bandwidth

The word "bandwidth" is sometimes used synonymously with transmission time. Bandwidth is the information carrying capacity of the wires and channels that connect one to the Internet.

The word "bandwidth" is also sometimes used to refer to the storage capacity of a host system. When you accidentally IM the same message to the same person a few times, you are wasting both time and bandwidth, because this requires to be stored somewhere.

Respect Time

Look Good Online

The world is very large; therefore, most people just want to be liked when they communicate online. IM lets you reach out to people around the world, even if you have never met them before. No one can see you, so you will not be judged by the color of your skin, eyes, or hair, weight, your age, or your clothing. You will, however, be judged by the quality of your writing. For most people who choose to communicate online, this is an advantage; if they did not enjoy using the written word, they would not be there. So spelling and grammar do count, but you do not have to be perfect; many people do not worry about it. If you spend a lot of time on the net and you are new, it is worth brushing them up:

Keep Flaming Under Control

Flaming is what people do when they express a strongly held opinion without holding back any emotion. Tact is not its objective. Likewise, Netiquette does forbid the continuous flame wars, for example a series of angry letters. Most of them from two or three people directed toward each other, which can dominate the tone and destroy the friendship of an IM or discussion group. While flame wars can initially be amusing, they get boring very quickly to people who are not involved in them. They are an unfair monopolization of bandwidth. Another nice note to add, is to mix upper and lower case and standard capitalization. When it is mixed it is much easier to read than all lower or all upper case. Using upper case when you write is like screaming when you speak!

Dos and Don’ts

Links

Albion's Netiquette Home Page

University of Alberta's E-netiquette

Jeff Zbar at Net.Worker - Cautions about IM in the Office - Instant messaging: Tool, toy or menace?

Kathy Snead at iVillage - Guidelines to Instant Messaging