It's about 7:15 on Saturday morning. Half an hour ago I sent an e-mail on the school e-mail system to some of my peers including my boss and friend (I hope still a friend) Erin. The e-mail was strictly informational and not urgent; something I'd intended to do all week.
Ten minutes later I get an e-mail back from Erin about I must not sleep in. Oh shucks did I do it again? Two weeks ago I sent "mass texts" to friends saying "Happy Valentine's Day" at about 7 AM on a Saturday. The next Monday, Alison (another good (former?) friend said, "I gotta a bone to pick with you. Nice thought, but at 7 on a Saturday! I awake to Happy V-day from you!"
Being a slow learner, I will finally now reflect. What is the etiquette with all this new tech? I have made a poor assumption - generalizing from my own behavior. I plug in my cell out in the kitchen to recharge about 10 every evening. Because I am "polite", I have my cell on low ring and vibrate for calls and vibrate only for texts. My cell does NOT interrupt "everyone in the room". So I consider myself "digitally polite".
Perhaps not so eh? WHEN do I call, when do I text, when do I send e-mails and at some point when do I tweet? (I'm not a Tweeter yet. More later.)
I know on a land line, not to call before 7 AM, unless it is an emergency. Of course, 7 is not firm - it varies by person and by day. Sam's always up by 6 and add an hour on the weekend and 2 hours on New Year's Day.
That was with last century's technology. Our phones (land lines) rang at one level - loud enough to be heard in any room. We seldom shut them off. They were meant to wake us up - if it rang it was (better be) urgent. It was most impolite to call before 7!
What is the new etiquette? I don't call on my cell before before 7 unless urgent. So what about texts and e-mails. Do I need to change my behavior? Alison said she has her phone at bedside. I haven't talked to Erin yet. (I hope she'll talk to me. I did a really dumb thing of immediately e-mailing back "sorry if I awakened you". I suspect it arrive just about the time she was back to sleep. Gene THINK!)
I need to adjust. Almost the only land line calls I get are from solicitors. I am awakened by my land line for wrong numbers; haven't had an emergency call for years thankfully. If someone wanted/needed to wake me, what would they do. Increasingly fewer folk even have my land line; I am totally inaccessible to many from 10 PM to 6 AM.
My work; my adjustments. Do I want to to be inaccessible to many from 10 to 6. What types of incoming messages do I want to awaken me? Do I really need to be interrupted from my important sleep? On the flip side, how do make sure I'm not interrupting others unintentionally. I really do want to be polite; I want to practice digital etiquette.
How can technology help me? I can set my home thermostat to turn down at night by a couple of degrees to save fuel. Can I set my cell to only ring for live incoming calls from 10 to 6? Not sure. I am sure sure that I don't want to be awakened by my 4 AM nuisance e-mails!
As I compose this, I am multi-tasking. Yeah, listening to NPR. Two items of note; I'll try to add links to this or a next blog.
The first a segment with Daniel Schoor, newsman - must be in his eighties - almost a Walter Cronkite. The segment was on Twitter. It was wonderful. They were tweeting during the 10 minute segment. In response to the tweet "Why do you use Twitter?", one response was "I tweet for the same reason that I read, to know that I am not alone". Pretty heady; pretty scary. To almost equate tweeting and reading; I considered being deeply offended. This new techy opportunities are powerful; they provide the ability to connect and create.
As I noted previously, I'm not a tweeter (yet). The NPR Twitter segment further piqued my interest. Mr. Schoor got signed up during the segment. The second segment was on Algebra; a wonderful interview with Scott Devlin - the Math Guy. He said Algebra is important because you can't do a spreadsheet without it. Now that is a guy and a comment I love! Algebra with some relevance! Links to stories to read and/or listen. Signing off for now. Sorry Al; sorry Erin. I am learning.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I received this via e-mail From Alison - I loved it too. Referring to the post she says:
I love it! I don’t know how to add to it or comment, so here you are.
I think, in general, that appropriate times to call, email, and/or text may be generational. I am in my 20’s and the rule as far as I have ever known are not to call someone unless it is an emergency before 9 or even 10am. I suppose it does depend on the person, but this is the general rule I go by and my friends appreciate it! My parents have learned the rule too and have done a great job sticking to it! Even though they are up at 5am on Saturdays ( I will NEVER understand that) they refrain form calling me until after 10am. To me, emailing is not included in this rule because I don’t have a smart phone or blackberry and my slumber will not be affected at all if you decided to with me a Happy Valentine’s Day (or any other message) at 7am. However, the text message at 7am woke me. I also think younger people are more apt to keep their cell phones in ear shot. I use it daily as my alarm clock and it is the only phone I have. I have no need for a land line, neither do you it sounds like! Why pay for solicitors to call and people with the wrong # to bother you? It makes no sense to me!
I too like to try to be polite with my cell phone. I often have it on vibrate and I refuse to talk in a room full of people. There are, as I am sure we have both seen, those people who do that and I find it very aggregating. I don’t want to know what they are talking about and I don’t CARE! You should do a survey about my generational hypothesis!
Post a Comment