Conscientiousness
No, I’m not just showing off with long fancy words… I just couldn’t think of another title!
The internet… fascinating thing, full of endless possibilities to improve the world we live in, to share ideas and bla bla bla… yeah you know.
I was reading some comments on a web site yesterday and something struck me, there is 1 key skill/trait that is essential for survival on the internet… conscientiousness!
Being aware that anyone can write pretty much anything, means to find the really good bit of information… to work out whats really going on… to make sense of the madness… requires you to think about who, why, when, where, what and how everything becomes that which you see on screen.
Let me give an example, 2 people fall out:
Mr X goes online and accuses Mr Y of something, some people read it and think “well, this guy seems real, must be true”, some read it and think “nah this guys full of rubbish”… I (and I hope I’m not alone) read it and thought “why is this person saying this, is it true? whats the other side of the story?”
Turned out X & Y had fallen out, looks to me like what X was saying was utterly lacking in truth… but still fascinating to see how many people read it as geniune at first… if Mr Y hadn’t seen the comment, people might of been left thinking it was true.
Now, I know rumours n accusations are nothing new… but consider this… 3 days after it was posted 416 people were watching (ie notified when updated) and the page had over 5000 reads… in 3 days!
I dunno what I’m wittering about now, but the whole thing really made me think about how you are perceived online and the responsibility you have to be conscientious in your reactions, thoughts and actions.
Innocent until proven guilty… false until proven true… impartial until considered in detail… suspicious until proven safe… thats my moto for today!
