Back in 2013, we published a set of propaganda-style posters on cell phone etiquette. Some of the rules hold up, but a lot of them focused on talking over the phone, while everyone pretty much just texts these days. “Don’t choose a cheesy, obnoxious, or vulgar ringtone” feels almost irrelevant in an age where people so seldom receive calls.
Overall, the advice almost seems quaint. Thirteen years ago, about the worst thing a guy could do with his phone was have it go off during a movie. Since then, our ability to make life unpleasant with our technology has only increased, and our etiquette hasn’t really caught up with our newfound powers to annoy.
So I thought it would be helpful to offer some suggested rules for smartphone and digital etiquette that might make our current lives a bit smoother. For your consideration.
Don’t Make Your Phone Everyone Else’s Problem
Your phone should make your life more convenient without making everyone else’s life less pleasant. With that in mind:
Don’t play videos, music, podcasts, or games out loud in public. Put your headphones on. And for the love of Pete, don’t run your Bluetooth speaker full blast on a hiking trail. No one wants to hear Jelly Roll while trying to listen to birdsong.
Don’t take phone calls/Zooms/FaceTimes in shared spaces. Waiting rooms, coffee shops, airport gates, and elevators are not your living room. And just because wi-fi is improving on flights doesn’t mean you should hold a work meeting on the plane. No one wants to hear you blab about what’s coming down the Q3 pipeline.
Don’t phub. Phubbing is scrolling your phone while someone is talking to you. Unless there’s an emergency you need to attend to, the people you’re interacting with in meatspace — including service workers like waiters and grocery clerks — should be prioritized. Attention is a gift; grant it generously to those around you.
Don’t let filming your workout get in the way of other people using the gym. I film my lifts so my coach can check my form, so I get that filming can be helpful. But try to set up in a way that doesn’t disrupt other people’s flow and access to equipment, and if someone walks through your shot, don’t get upset. The gym is a public area, not your private domain.
Keep video at events to a minimum. Take your 15-second clip at the concert or your kid’s piano recital, then lower the phone so the people behind you can see the thing they came to see.
Don’t Create Digital Chores for Other People
Technology is supposed to remove friction from your life. Use it in a way that doesn’t create more friction for everybody else.
Don’t expect immediate responses to texts. Everyone knows that most everyone else has their phone with them all the time, and that they likely got your text soon after you sent it. But even when that’s true, that doesn’t mean someone’s obligated to respond right away. It may not be a good time, and you’re not entitled to an instant reply. Give people a chance to get back to you when it’s convenient for them. And don’t send “?” 10 minutes after someone hasn’t answered. A sure-fire way to be known as highly annoying.
Don’t wait too long to respond to texts, either. While the senders of texts shouldn’t expect immediate responses, recipients shouldn’t wait forever to reply, nor forget to reply at all. Sometimes people need an answer to move forward on something, and even when something isn’t technically urgent, a delayed response can make people wonder if they’ve offended. Do your best to respond promptly, typically within 24 hours. If you can’t, whether it’s because you’re busy or the reply requires thought or checking on something first, send a quick text letting the person know and saying you’ll be back with more later. No matter your schedule, everyone has the twenty seconds to do so.
Don’t text “Hey” and then wait for a reply before stating what you want. And don’t say, “Hi, got a sec?” on Slack before getting to your question. Just say what you want right away.
Don’t bombard friends with so many reels and memes that keeping up with you becomes homework. And when you’re together in person, don’t do the “let me show you this funny video on my phone” thing. Things are never as funny when you’re looking over the shoulder of someone who’s expecting you to laugh.
Don’t add people to group chats without asking. Nobody wants to look down at their phone and find out they’ve been put into a group chat with twenty other people they don’t know, yammering all day.
Don’t add all your contacts to your newsletter without asking. This happens to me all the time. Some guy I emailed 12 years ago — or haven’t ever interacted with! — starts a newsletter and puts me on his list without asking me, and now I have to unsubscribe. Instant rapport killer; now you’re on my list — of people to never do business with.
Don’t try to have a text exchange over what should be a phone call or an in-person conversation. If a convo is going to involve delving into a lot of details or will go a lot better when you can read someone’s emotions and facial expressions, don’t try to do it over text. The result will be endless back-and-forth or antagonism-generating miscommunications. Choose the right medium for your exchanges. Sometimes the best move is dialing someone up or knocking on their door. That’s especially true when you’re delivering emotionally weighty news — don’t break up with someone via text or fire someone by email.
Don’t Turn Other People Into Content
One of the strangest developments of the smartphone age is that ordinary people have become raw material for everyone else’s entertainment. Someone doesn’t hand the foul ball he caught over to a kid, and out come the phones. Within hours, millions of people are laughing at a guy, or worse, an online mob is digging up info on him so he gets fired. The same thing happens on a smaller scale every day when someone’s dumb text gets screenshotted and passed around the group chat for laughs. Live by the Kantian rule of treating people with dignity, even when they seem to act in its absence.
No smartphones out in locker rooms or bathrooms or anywhere else people get undressed. This should be an absolute rule. Nobody standing at a urinal with his ding dong out should have to wonder whether the phone in your hand is recording him.
If someone gets hurt, for the love of God, help before you film.
Unless someone’s a danger to the people around him, or you need a record of what happened (a hit-and-run, say), don’t film people at their worst. We’ve all acted poorly in public, and none of us would want our worst moment posted to the internet and resurfaced from time to time from now until Jesus returns. Apply the Golden Rule.
Don’t participate in internet pile-ons. If you see a video of someone who seems to be acting like a clown, resist the urge to pile on by putting in your two cents or forwarding the vid to your friends, family, or social media following. While you may feel that the person “deserves” the shame, all you’ve got is a minute of a stranger’s life with no context. You’ve had plenty of 60-second stretches in your own that would’ve looked bad if they were recorded. You don’t know the whole story, so give people some grace.
Don’t share screenshots of private texts, emails, DMs, or Slack messages with a wider audience without a compelling reason. Crime, abuse, fraud, or someone’s life being in danger are compelling reasons. “The group chat will think this is funny” is not.
Don’t use strangers as involuntary characters in prank videos or “social experiments.” This crap has to stop. Now.
Don’t swipe through someone’s camera roll. If a buddy hands you his phone to show you a photo, glance and hand it back. Maybe a swipe to the right or left is a spicy pic of his wife or a screenshot of a MyChart diagnosis. He didn’t give you permission to see those.
Don’t Turn Relationships Into Public Spectacles
Just because the internet allows you to invite thousands of strangers into issues and events that would have formerly stayed between an immediate group of people, doesn’t mean you should. Arbitrate and commemorate like it’s 1995.
Don’t complain about your spouse online. Rather than putting them on blast on social media, take it up with them privately.
Don’t turn every personal dispute into a referendum in the court of public opinion. If your neighbor’s dog is barking at 2 AM and waking up your toddler, talk to your neighbor man-to-man instead of ranting on Nextdoor.
Don’t post about someone else’s pregnancy, engagement, breakup, diagnosis, job loss, or death before he or she does. That’s for the person to share, not you.
Don’t post embarrassing photos or stories about your children that will follow them into adulthood. You had the benefit of not having your childhood documented online. Give your kids the same.
Don’t post pics of other people’s kids, either. You can share how much you love coaching your son’s flag football team without posting a team photo of a bunch of minors to your 2,000 Instagram followers. Just keep kids off the internet.
Don’t Let AI Erase Ordinary Human Consideration
The etiquette around AI is still emerging, but these two rules are already sound:
Don’t create realistic AI images or video (or audio) of real people without their permission. Creepy, and clearly wrong by every measure of gut-level conscience.
Don’t outsource every human gesture to AI. Using AI to draft an email detailing the practice schedule for a team you coach is one thing. Having a machine generate condolences, apologies, break-up texts, or wedding vows is another. Be a human and share your messy human emotions and sweaty thoughts in messy, sweaty prose.
Just Be Cool
If you look at all these rules, they kind of fall under three overarching principles.
The first, be considerate. Don’t impose unnecessary costs, inconveniences, or distractions on others with your tech.
Second, be discreet. Don’t expose other people’s private moments, conversations, or vulnerabilities to public scrutiny.
Third, be present. Don’t let your technology stand in for you.
That’s what I think being cool means. Be considerate, be discreet, be present. Follow those three guidelines and the specific rules will take care of themselves.
This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.
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