"Netiquette" Nowadays

After reading an article about online etiquette I tried to find related information about “netiquette” as the article referred to it. Not to my surprise many of the articles included Facebook if not used it as the prime example.

A lack of “netiquette."

Not only do we see that individuals are lacking etiquette in their daily life conversations in between gadgets, but it seems that the most lack of online etiquette is seen a place where it has been so common, we don’t realize it anymore. That place is online games.

As the author of this short article reminds us, many gamers have grown so in sync with their fictional characters that they forget that the other players are actually human beings. I witnessed this once, maybe because I’m not a frequent gamer at all, but I was really astounded by the kind of games that exist and what the characters do. Call of duty is a very mature game and considered violent. However, that’s not the worst part. What was the rudest thing about these online games (mostly for Mature and Teenage audience) was how these players interacted with each other. No such thing as salutations or greetings. Instead they cursed and bashed each other over how they had lost or were not playing correctly.

I thought to myself that if this game where occurring in real life, the character and gamers would not really act that way. Take for example Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. The characters are soldier fighting against their enemies in different settings. The gamers are constantly cursing and bashing the abilities of one another when they get shot or lose a target. In reality, if a war were going on, they would not completely act that way. Soldiers have respect for one another and yes, maybe they use foul language once in a while when their frustrated but they would not say or act the way the games do within network chats.

So when I came across an article titled “Let their voices be unheard,” it dawned on me that some individuals have become aware of these bad manners. The author Griffin McElroy, speaks about the new mute feature in the game Halo; something he very much appreciates. For a game to include such feature, it must mean that they’ve become aware at how violent the game is and how the violence sometimes bring about a very competitive atmosphere that causes the gamers to react they way they do and without social manners. What can be done about this lack of online etiquette besides including mute features? Well, some like Vartan Haghverdi from ebonline.tk and David Pogue from the New York times have written about these events and asked for gamers to have consideration for others and for the internet users to have respect for others on the web.


Sources:
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/09/15/halo-reach-has-an-auto-mute-feature/
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/14pogue-email-2/
http://ebonline.tk/etiquette.html