What Would Mickey Do?

I was watching the Disney Channel.  I know.  I know.  I was surfing, and I landed on Harriet the Spy:  Blog Wars, and well, as a blogger, I was intrigued.  Mesmerized?  Ok - pathetically sucked in.  Call it what you will.  I made it through about seven minutes.  Then a commercial came on that I have now watched three or four times:  I had to - someone after my own heart wrote it.

So the gist is, Disney has public service announcements called "TTI" or "The Time I...".  In this particular commercial called "Katie:  The Time I was a Lousy Friend," two girls are texting.  Katie informs Nat that she has told unnamed person/persons about Nat's crush on Drew.  Turns out the young, wippersnapper, Katie accepted a dare from two other "buddies" to post the information about Nat's crush on Drew's "profile".  Katie attempts to apologize multiple times via texting, but it takes accidently running into each other and Katie apologizing in person for the issue to reach resolution.

The Afterschool Special moment comes with Katie's commentary at the end:
I was lucky because Natalie is a super friend.  But I almost lost her because of one stupid web post.  From now on, I'm going to think about what I do and say online.  Because what you text or post can embarrass you and hurt other people.  And when it's online, you can't deny it, and you can't erase it.

And it got me thinking, there is no etiquette book for blogging, texting, or social media of any kind, but Disney found it socially important enough to address it with tweens.  The fact is when using social media, we need to realize, just as in conversation, tact and appropriateness need to be key.  The same social norms apply - even if you think you're hidden by the anonymity of a user name.  Tween or adult, we are all ultimately responsible for our behavior.

On the other hand, I have no idea how good ol' Harriet the Spy ended.

Social Media and the Pea by Alice Ann Williams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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