I often observe, as you I am sure, and sometimes with horror, disturbing behavior on social networks, where trolls are rampant, where we practice without embarrassment often anonymous attacks against people and where we indulge in rudeness of all kinds.
All of this, at least on the social media I use, is typically done by adults; and for these, there is probably not much more to do.
We can, however, and we should, at the same time as we prepare young people to navigate in a more critical way, prepare them to demonstrate a certain savoir-vivre and decorum which it is high time they prevail in the virtual world. This will undoubtedly be useful to them today, on the social networks that they frequent, but also, we can hope, tomorrow, on the metaverses and all these other virtual realities that they will frequent, but that it is very difficult to predict.
You guessed where I’m going.
There is a great challenge for this new course devoted to citizenship which will soon be offered in our schools: that of designing a digital citizenship.
We should, I think, make known to young people, in addition to all these excellent reasons to remain suspicious and critical of these networks, to insist on certain facts that are sometimes little or badly known which are as many reasons to demonstrate this knowledge- virtual living drawn by netiquette.
Here are four for reference — there are many more.
Incentives to be polite
We should first recall, in a striking way, the gigantism of the technologies concerned and what this means concretely. Whoever believes that what he says or does remains (totally or relatively) private and sheltered, as some trolls seem to think, should be inclined to reconsider.
Consider the following: Google processes an estimated tens of thousands (I read 70,000) of search requests per second. I let you calculate what that does per year.
When the data collected can be aggregated and combined with the traces you leave on all the sites you visit, you are no longer as private or anonymous as you thought. We know a lot about who you are, what you do, say, buy, even think. With a bit of GPS as a bonus, we can even locate where you live. In short: you are seen. Appointed. And all of that is remembered. And can even be sold, because there are sellers and buyers for this. So that’s a good argument to make known to encourage people to stay polite.
Here’s another one: beware of your emotions in the virtual world.
We know, especially since a famous research conducted by A. Kramer, J. Guillory and J. Hancock (published in 2014 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and relating to some 700,000 Facebook users) that, even without direct interactions, emotions are transmitted on social networks, that they are in this sense “contagious” and that network users can thus be manipulated. The Reinforce program concocted by Google after its purchase of YouTube, and which increased viewership in an extraordinary way, is exemplary in this sense and the story deserves to be known and told. Who knows, maybe that explains the very emotional reaction of this or that troll?
Even more, we should learn how our frequentations, our readings, our viewings, partly manipulated by algorithms (here we must take the time to explain what it is and in what way they too, counter-intuitively, can be biased), insert us into bubbles, which are like echo chambers in which we only hear the hum of what we think we know after having seriously thought about it.
This is a dangerous illusion, which leads to this strange effect (called Dunning-Kruger) characterized by an excess of self-confidence characteristic of ignorant or unlearned people. The excess of self-confidence which feeds a lack of confidence, where one should grant it to the most experienced: here is a beautiful paradox… It also feeds the troll…
Knowing all of this, and putting it all together, should encourage less pretentiousness and arrogance and more nuance and politeness when taking part in the democratic conversation on social media.
What does netiquette look like to promote and practice? I suggest this link which provides interesting ideas that you can draw inspiration from in class.
It goes without saying that none of this can be the business of the school alone and we can hope that the family will also contribute. The association Lève les œil, in France, recently put forward proposals on this subject that are causing a stir. I leave you with some reminders that young parents will no doubt want to ponder.
The family share
We don’t cut corners, as you will see.
For children: no screen before five years; less than an hour a day of screen time between six and twelve years old, and always in the company of the parents; no cell phone before age 15.
For the whole family: no screen in the morning; no screen during meals; no screen in the room. (I suspect that many adults, including me, will find it difficult to follow this recommendation…)
A lecture
The recommendations of Lève les yeux are set out and justified in The war of attention. How not to lose itby Yves Marry and Florent Souillot, The Breakaway, Paris, 2022.