The Dos and Don'ts of Online Communication For Young Adults

The internet has become an important part of everyone’s life, especially in young adult’s lives where the internet plays a huge part in their daily activities, allowing them to communicate with others, share information through messaging apps and social media platforms.

With so much of their lives dependent on the internet, it is important that young adults know the dos and don’ts of online communication. Here are some tips for young adults to help with online etiquette:

1. Be Respectful

Whether you are on a social media platform or any other online platform, you need to be certain that you are being respectful. Every human being is different and everyone has their own feelings and opinions. When you are communicating with someone online then you gotta respect their feelings and opinions. 

Someone tries to make vulgar, inoffensive, and disrespectful comments on something that someone has shared online but you should always remember that behind every account on the internet, there is a real human being behind. If you don’t have the guts to say something to someone in real life then being disrespectful over the internet is a coward’s thing to do.

2. Be Careful With Humour and Sarcasm

Funny people are loved by almost everyone and it is a great thing to share jokes online, be sarcastic and make people laugh. Just try to be yourself online and don’t try to act like someone that you are not in real life. However, when you are communicating online then you should vary that not everything is as clear online as it is in-person and sometimes, people might even take your jokes and sarcastic comments seriously.

You may be joking or being sarcastic but your jokes might be misinterpreted online and people will think that you are being serious. When you are trying to be funny online then make sure that you use emojis since most people nowadays judge whether someone is serious or not depending on the usage of emojis. Also, before you send the joke, re-read it and think that will everyone be able to get the joke?

3. Behave Properly

In cyberspace, people may not be able to see how you are or find out about your personality but you should try to behave properly as you do in real life, even when you are in different areas of cyberspace. The standards of behavior on every online platform may be slightly different from others but the basic thing is that you should be ethical.

Whichever platform you are on, whether it is a social media platform or any other online platform such as Chatiw or CooMeet, you should know the basic norms of the platform and try to act within those norms and limits.

4. Don't Share Personal Information

Always be cautious of how much personal information you share online. Although every platform has its privacy settings in place that are meant to protect the personal information of its users falling into wrong hands in the online world and cyberspace, there is nothing ever truly private. Once you share something online, it is not ever truly private.

Make sure that you share very little personal information online and keep your personal information off the internet as much as possible. Also, avoid sharing something that might get you into trouble. Sharing personal and sensitive information is not a wise thing to do.

5. Don't Feel Forced to Talk

If you feel uncomfortable talking with someone or feel scared then there is no obligation for you to keep talking with that person. The whole point of chatting or communicating with someone online is to have fun and if you are feeling unconformable that ends that immediately. 

There is no point in talking with someone who makes you feel unconformable. You are always in control in the online world and you shouldn’t feel forced to talk with anyone if you don’t want to.

6. Don't Download Anything from Anyone You Don't Know

Whenever you are online, remember that you don’t download anything that anyone you don’t know sends you. In online cyberspace, you will meet all sorts of people and some people are there just to scam people. 

Whether it is a file, photo, video, or any other thing, remember that if you don’t know the person then you shouldn’t download it. You can really know someone just from their social profile or their screen name and downloading anything that someone sends you is a fool’s thing to do.

7. Use Emojis In Conversations

Emojis have become an important part of online conversation and most people love to use emojis in their conversations as they make the whole conversation fun and interesting. If you are someone who is not using emojis then perhaps it is time for you to do so.

Nowadays, people don’t really like to talk to people who don’t use emojis because conversations with such people are usually boring. So, to make the conversations interesting and fun, you should try to use emojis in your sentences.