How Might Digital Citizenship Affect Web Usage?
How can we tell if we are being good digital citizens? Could digital etiquette change the web?
You might not have heard of digital citizenship, but it’s already affecting you directly. In the same way that being an American citizen invokes certain expected standards of behavior, the basic principles of how we should behave online have become known as digital citizenship. This creates a concept that’s currently being adopted from the classroom to the boardroom right across the world.
The Golden Digital Rules
Digital citizenship applies principles of acceptable behavior in the virtual world. It comprises equality of access and a basic appreciation of legal responsibilities, to an understanding of etiquette and personal security.Essentially, it provides a platform to teach people respect for one another and discourage negative traits like cyber bullying. Much of this seems like basic common sense, but as many people will ruefully attest, common sense can be hard to find when anonymity is afforded to online audiences.
Digital Obligation?
Cynics have argued the concept of digital citizenship is a nanny-ish over-reaction to a small minority of irresponsible or malicious web users. Many ask questions like: Should web users call out strangers for perceived breaches of etiquette dictated by an unaccountable ethics committee? Is the whole Respect, Educate and Protect philosophy simply an exercise in self-indulgence? If hackers and trolls don’t care that downloading illegal music is unethical, or that internet addiction is psychologically damaging, why should the rest of us be held to account?
Despite the relative indulgence of its guidelines regarding how to behave, digital citizenship is growing in popularity. It’s interesting to consider how its gradual adoption might affect internet usage in future, as the scattergun approach of the early 2000s evolves into a more integrated presence within modern societies. There is already a growing backlash against unpleasant online comments, with social media platforms making greater efforts to identify abusive behavior and web users feeling more able to shout down trolls.
Cyber Kindness
It’s quite possible that growing restrictions on freedom of speech will make the internet a quieter and more passive place than today’s bile-fueled forums and message boards might suggest. It seems likely that greater understanding of social media’s indelible footprint will see a reduction in the information we share online. Indeed, this decade may come to resemble a period of naivety in terms of how we upload sensitive personal information without considering the long-term consequences of these actions.
Setting An Example
Digital citizenship will probably become more closely intertwined with our real identities, to clamp down on misbehavior. The forward-thinking Estonian government has given each resident a unique electronic ID that acts as their digital fingerprint. Despite accusations of Orwellian interference, this national program has hugely simplified administrative procedures like renewing a driving licence or creating a new business. Bad behavior online is easily identified (and tackled), while an IT-centric education system has seen Estonia’s population of just 1.3 million people create leading services like Skype and TransferWise.
The Estonian e-citizenship model has also slashed government bureaucracy. That’s very useful in a time of global economic uncertainty, especially when our faith in authority appears to be eroding with every election or scandal. The American principle of ‘one man one vote’ may be reborn for the digital age as our online voices finally gain equally worth, regardless of our backgrounds or demographics.