Nettiquette

By Bethany Bray

Our generation is at a coming of age where we will never know an Internet- free existence. We will never know what it's like to phone a friend at 10:00 p.m. and politely ask if it's too late to call. We will never know what it's like to ride our bike over to our neighbor's house to ask for a cup of sugar for the cookies that our mother is baking. We won't understand the humor that our parents will talk about in the scene of “Clueless” where Cher and Dionne find each other in the high school hall way, mid- cell phone conversation. The majority of us don't even know what “Clueless” is. 

While us teenagers are staring into our heavily pixelated cell phone screens, the adult world is worried that we are missing the poignant moments of our “golden years.” We may have never thought of it before, but think of all of the things we have missed because we were texting, or Tweeting, or even Facebooking about the cute old couple that we saw at WalMart holding hands earlier that day. I bet some of you didn't see Gabby Douglas become the first African American gymnast to win the gold medal in the all- around gymnastics competition, because you were texting your best friend about what you were going to wear to school the next day. I bet some of you didn't witness the success of the Curiosity as it planted on the surface of Mars, because you were Instagramming a picture of your cat. 

Maybe the adult world is right. Maybe we do need to pause and observe what's happening around us without having an iPhone 4 in front of our face. So, with fading hope for future generations, they leave us their pleas. 

Stop texting so much. In 2010, the average teen was sending more than 3,000 texts a month. That's 3,000 moments that we had our heads ducked down away from our surroundings, fingers flailing, tongue protruding from the lower left side of our mouth ever so slightly, sending someone an obviously inane message when we could've been interacting with the people around us. Trust me, I know, we use our phones to steer clear of awkward situations, but have you thought that maybe staying quiet in the elevator with our nose in the phone screen makes things more awkward? Would you rather ask the person in the elevator with you how his or her day is doing, leading up to a nice conversation, or stand pigeon toed quietly beside he or she wishing that you could get to the sixth floor faster to avoid the awkward silence? Plus, our fingers would appreciate a much- needed break from the touch- screen. 

Get over your fear of the phone. Voice-to-voice communication is becoming a lost art, and that's kind of a huge bummer. Nowadays, only 14% of teens say they talk daily with friends on a landline, when it was 30% in 2009. 31% of teens say that they never talk on a landline anyway. The phone offers unparalleled access to the thoughts and feelings of the other person on the line. Only over the phone can you pick up on nuances, or soothe a spurned friend appropriately, and really get to the heart of why that breezy Jocelyn asked Greg to the Sadie Hawkins Dance when everyone on the whole first floor knew you were planning to. 

Maybe the rules and pleas that the adult world has left are selfish, but they just want the best for everyone, even for the know-at-alls, the ADD-addled, and the lightening-fingered.